The U.S. healthcare industry reported its first monthly loss of jobs in 10 years. Politicians and economists were quick to place blame and credit.
According to a January 10, 2014 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, 6, 000 jobs were lost in December 2013 in the sector. Overall the U.S. added 74, 000 jobs during the month.
Ambulatory healthcare services had the biggest hit, dropping 4, 100 jobs; home healthcare services dropped 3, 700 jobs while hospitals cut 2.400 jobs. Outpatient care centers and nursing and residential care centers posted gains of 3, 600 and 500 jobs, respectively.
Marcia Frellick of Medscape.com reported December was a steep departure from the healthcare sector’s pattern over the rest of the year. Jobs in healthcare averaged a monthly gain of 17, 000 in 2013. In 2012, the average monthly gain was 27, 000 jobs. Not since July 2003, when 9, 000 jobs were lost, has the sector reported a monthly decline.
The year was one of sluggish job growth for healthcare as only 208, 000 jobs were added, down sharply from the 321, 000 added in 2012.
For the year, home health services for aging baby booms added 68, 000 jobs, followed by physicians’ offices adding 43, 000 jobs, and outpatient care centers adding 42, 000 jobs. The nursing care facility sector was the only sector registering a loss with 15, 000 jobs going away as seniors spent less time in those facilities.
Overall, spending on healthcare grew only 3.7% in 2012, which was less than the overall growth of the economy. It was the fourth consecutive year of slow growth, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Still, according to the BLS, the employment outlook is strong for healthcare for the next decade.
In December, the agency released projections that the healthcare and social assistance employment sector will grow at an annual rate of 2.6% and will add 5 million jobs between 2012 and 2022. That projected growth accounts for nearly one third of the projected increase in all jobs, in part because of the need for workers to care for an aging population.
Blaming Obama
Republicans in Congress, led by Representative Cathy McMorris Rogers, chair of the House Republican Conference were quick to blame Obamacare. “The healthcare sector lost jobs, at the very time that we need more people; we need more doctors, we need more nurses, we need more therapists, across the board. We’re seeing people lose their jobs…it’s another impact of the president’s healthcare law on healthcare in this country and on people’s jobs. We can do better, ” said McMorris Rogers.
According to Factcheck.org, citing the BLS report, there were 14, 661, 300 health care employees in December. So a loss of 6, 000 jobs is a drop of just over 0.04%.
American Political Virus
“I think reading anything into a one month dip is silly, ” Uwe E. Reinhardt, an economics professor at Princeton University, told FactCheck. “Statistical error alone could account for a good part of it.”
Robert Farley of FactCheck noted that healthcare spending has slowed in recent years, a fact President Obama has frequently touted even though experts have said the main reason for slower growth in spending is the once-faltering and still-recovering economy, not the Affordable Care Act. As a result of that trend, economists say we should expect a commensurate slowing in the growth of healthcare jobs.
Reinhardt told FactCheck that McMorris Rodgers appears to suffer from “some uniquely American virus” that prevents people from seeing both sides of an economic equation—in this case, that lower healthcare spending is tied to healthcare jobs.
Bending of the Cost Curve
“For decades now we have thundered that we must control health spending and that healthcare breaks the federal budget. For reasons that have little to do with Obamacare, and that are still being researched and debated among health economists, the healthcare cost curve (really the annual growth in total and per capita health spending) has been bent downward, starting in 2002 and accelerating after 2007. Most economists now believe growth will not return to pre-2002 rates, ” added Reinhardt.
Whoever gets the credit or blame, healthcare spending growth is slowing and adding jobs at a slower pace than in the past.
