Some argued that Obamacare would reduce the costs of healthcare in the U.S., but that has not happened. The government has failed us in multiple ways, by tolerating rampant fraud, by mandating voluminous red tape, and by reducing competition.
(p. A18) For years, the United States labor market has been undergoing a structural transformation. As jobs in manufacturing have receded, slowly but steadily, the health care industry has more than replaced them.
. . .
The nation’s corps of nurses, oncologists, lab technicians, anesthesiologists and other health-related workers has been growing steadily, through recession after recession, going from 9 percent of the total workforce in 2000 to 13 percent today.
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. . . 20 percent or so of health care employment . . . is administrative. . . .
David Cutler, a health care economist at Harvard University, cautions that while more people will be needed to deliver care in the future, the industry shouldn’t be seen as a jobs program. Costs have been rising for decades, placing a larger and larger burden on taxpayers and businesses — and to the extent possible, those resources should be redirected to other parts of the economy.
“Any person who’s employed in health care who we don’t need to be employed in health care, that’s a waste,” Dr. Cutler said. “That’s money in health care that costs people money when they’re sick, and that’s a person who could be doing a job somewhere else.”
For the full story see:
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(Note: the online version of the story has the date July 3, 2025, and has the title “How Health Care Remade the U.S. Economy.”)