I wanted to talk with you about some stories in the news recently. One of KY’s largest hospital providers made an announcement recently that it will be doing some layoffs as a result of the affordable care act. A couple days ago they finally released some figures on the cuts. They will be cutting about current 500 employees and will eliminate about 200 vacant jobs as well.
That got me looking into layoffs in the healthcare field in general. I found that KYOne is not alone. A hospital chain in Las Vegas announced that they will lay off 40 nurses in addition to 100 other staff. The Cleveland clinic is eliminating 3,000 jobs. And it is estimated that the medical device sector will be losing about 33,000 jobs as a result of the affordable care act.
What is significant about this is in general the healthcare segment has been exempt from this type of cutback in previous down economies. In fact with the affordable care act, because of the increased number of people having access to healthcare one would expect the hospitals would need to be adding to their staffs. Predictions are that there will be a shortage of needed healthcare workers yet these hospital chains are cutting back. Primarily the cut backs are a result of the reduction in reimbursement expected under the affordable care act.
Healthcare isn’t the only sector announcing cutbacks in February of this year. According to government figures 65% of small business will see a significant spike in the premiums for their health insurance plans as a result of the affordable care act. This will affect the insurance of more than 11 million people.
The wall street journal says that 1 out of 6 men between 25 and 54 have no jobs right now. That is about 10.4 million people. They went on to report back in January that the actual unemployment rate hit a record 37.2%
So just how bleak is it really. Well I did a Google search of layoffs for 2014. Here are the ones that were announced just in Feb 2014.
KY State police – 20
Jefferson Co Teachers – 41
KY Coal 700 more and one major coal producer is filing bankruptcy
United Airlines – 470
LATA Environmental in Paducah, they work with the nuclear industry – 120
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Healthcare