How long can the healthcare industry sustain the fledging US economy?
According to yahoo news the healthcare industry is the only sector in the economy which is seeing sustained job growth and increased wages. This can’t possibly last forever. Will the health care industry get Walmartized meaning they’ll eventually have a glut of people and start paying everyone $8.00 an hour like all the other industries are trying to do?
They already are.
The whole point of all the different job titles is to let the higher paid people spend less time with each patient – so nurses, paid less than doctors, can now do what only doctors were once allowed to do; nurses aides, paid less than nurses, now do what nurses used to do; etc.
And in other areas of health care, such as nursing homes, the number of care-givers per resident has been declining steadily.
The situation will only get worse as more of the baby-boomers retire.
And, even if that were not true, healthcare doesn’t really produce anything; at best it prevents lost production. That means that the productive sector of the economy has to produce enough to pay for health care. Which means, as you’ve pointed out, that sustained job growth and the rising percentage of GDP devoted to health care can not continue.
May 30th, 2010 at 6:56 pm
They already are.
The whole point of all the different job titles is to let the higher paid people spend less time with each patient – so nurses, paid less than doctors, can now do what only doctors were once allowed to do; nurses aides, paid less than nurses, now do what nurses used to do; etc.
And in other areas of health care, such as nursing homes, the number of care-givers per resident has been declining steadily.
The situation will only get worse as more of the baby-boomers retire.
And, even if that were not true, healthcare doesn’t really produce anything; at best it prevents lost production. That means that the productive sector of the economy has to produce enough to pay for health care. Which means, as you’ve pointed out, that sustained job growth and the rising percentage of GDP devoted to health care can not continue.
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