Obamacare

Nurses Activism

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How exactly does it affect nurses? I've heard there are shortages of nurses all across the country, particularly the West coast. And was wondering if those shortages are due to the recent news about Obamacare.

Nurses are having a hard time finding work after graduating- a scary thought for anyone looking into nursing. There's obviously more than one underlying cause, but can anyone please shed some light on the situation?

Thanks!

Specializes in PICU, NICU, L&D, Public Health, Hospice.

I agree that health insurance does not equal health care...yet that is the model in this country that our legislators were hell bent on perpetuating.

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Specializes in Critical Care.
It wasn't a Politifact study. You can find a similar report in Huff Post on the same study if that makes you feel better. Here is a link to the actual paper, which was written by a former Clinton admin senior healthcare advisor.

Health Insurance Coverage and Mortality Revisited - Kronick - 2009 - Health Services Research - Wiley Online Library

If you read the paper you will see that your analysis of the study wasn't quite right either.

BTW, interestingly, the Harvard Study was backed by a "physicians for universal healthcare" group.

Anyway, I wasn't arguing that one study was better then the other. My point is that your claim that universal healthcare would decrease mortality is far from being a proven conclusion.

I am the nurse who doesn't believe in the value of preventive care (and everything else you mentioned)??? Since I have a differing opinion then you on what is the best way to provide the best healthcare for the most people, then I must not be intelligent or compassionate enough to understand the importance of all of what you mentioned. Pretty closed-minded of you don't you think?

Using your logic, from my perspective you would be the one who doesn't believe in the value of those things. I won't say that though, because I don't believe it to be true.

I think the conclusion of the Konick study leads into a better way of looking at this topic:

"The results of this work strongly suggest that arguments in favor of universal coverage should not focus on the beneficial effects of that policy on the life expectancy of the currently uninsured. It makes more sense to turn the question on its head and ask, "What benefits are there to our economy or our society from a system that allows 45 million Americans (and growing) to be without coverage?" A set of well-worn arguments in economics considers the tradeoffs between equity and efficiency, noting that policies that increase equity often do so at the cost of efficiency. But the American health insurance conundrum stands these arguments on their head--by most standards we have the most inefficient health care system in the developed world, as well as the most inequitable (
Garber and Skinner 2008
). Achieving universal coverage in the context of a more sensible and equitable system of health care financing will not magically solve the problems of inefficiency or reduce the unsustainable growth rate of health care expenditures, but arguably would be a good start."

To start with, healthcare doesn't primarily decrease mortality, it's main function is in terms of quality, not quantity of life. If you look at the past 50-100 years, the overall average lifespan has increased dramatically, and while medicine has advanced leaps and bounds in that time, it can't really take credit for this increase. In the one area where medicine can take credit, maternal and newborn care, there have been huge gains made, and pregnancy and childbirth is no longer a significant killer of women, and an exponentially larger number of infants survive childbirth and the first year of life. 2 world wars accounting for a large part of a lower life expectancy as did ridiculously dangerous working conditions. However if you look at someone's life expectancy in 1930, so long as they made it through childbirth, infancy, war, and their job, their life expectancy wasn't really all that less.

We also need to consider that "mortality risk" by itself is a non-variable piece of data, it's 100%. To make the risk of mortality useful, it has to be highly limited to specific parameters, which means the data can vary as much as the parameters do.

While there are plenty of examples where healthcare "saved lives", as well as cases where lack of insurance contributed to an early death, when you throw them in with huge overall population data it essentially becomes insignificant (although I'm sure anybody whose life was saved due to healthcare or lost because they lacked access would argue that saving and losing lives is significant, regardless of how rarely either happens.

Mainly, measuring healthcare by mortality is largely incorrect. If you take two patients who are exactly the same and give one full access to healthcare, and give the other limited access, there's a pretty good chance they'll both die about the same time. While they both may suffer from diabetes and it's associated vascular complications, the difference that healthcare offers isn't that it keeps you from dying from this disease, it's how it manages it prior to death. One might die at 75, after retiring at 65 and living independently with a reasonable quality of life up until death. The other may also die at 75, except he had a stroke at 50 and became disabled, stuck in a nursing home, then went on dialysis at 60. This brings us to the main issue that healthcare reform needs to deal with but didn't, cost.

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I never said that healthcare doesn't prevent death.

You stated:

"so what if many studies say the number of deaths

due to lack of ability to pay for our ever increasing healthcare/lack of insurance,

in the USA

is 45,000 or more? each and every year!!"

What I did say is that there are not "many studies" that say that. There is one, and a few others that come up with far fewer numbers. All I did was simply show you that there are also those who find major flaws with those studies.

You also said:

"It's hard to imagine a NURSE who doesn't recognize the value of preventative care, of ongoing medical supervision of various health conditions, of access to even the educational bennies one gets from being able to afford seeing a doctor or follow up care, or being able to afford/stay on their meds,

as being able to prolong a person's health or lifespan, or even prevent the person's death,

yet,

there you are, SCrndude!!"

Since you incorrectly stated what my position is, please allow me to clarify it. It's pretty simple. My position is that health insurance does not equal healthcare. I do not believe Obamacare or a Universal Healthcare coverge system is a effective or sustainable way to provide those things you mentioned.

As a side note, unless you would do them when speaking to me in person, I could do without the dumb little eye-roll and laughing on the floor smiley faces. It is insulting and disrespectful.

I am sorry you found an emoticon disrespectful, but the quote from you that i was replying TO, about i am closed minded, could also be viewed as insulting.

and i am sorry i misrepresented, misunderstood your stance on this. Since you seemed to be arguing against AFA, i thought that you didn't see the value of healthcare to reduce the death rate. I now do better understand what you are saying. Thank you for taking time to clarify for me.

(me, i am for universal single-payor, and think AFA didn't go far ENOUGH).

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To MunoRN, i almost always love your posts, and agree with much of your post (although, your anecdotal story of the diabetic who couldn't afford healthcare, or his meds, skims over the chance he'd actually die, which is a huge risk of uncontrolled diabetes)

i am not sure everyone agrees that ACA won't impact costs:

The CBO (Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan economic dept) seems to think it will reduce costs, and repealing it, would increase costs.

Congressional Budget Office Report Estimates Cost of Health-Care Law - The Daily Beast

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43472

But, not perfect, i so agree. My hope is, that like other wildly popular programs passed by democrats in the past, like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc,------all hugely protested against, all were usually very skeletal when first passed,

were built upon, and improved, over time.

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The news covered a story here that stated that "in response to obamacare" one of the local hospitals went on a hiring freeze and laid off 5200 employees. This was dec 2012

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The news covered a story here that stated that "in response to obamacare" one of the local hospitals went on a hiring freeze and laid off 5200 employees. This was dec 2012

That local hospital is going nuts over legislation that doesn't even fully take effect until 2014...I suspect they were already having financial problems and put a PR spin on it.

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Specializes in Critical-care RN.

... post a link to this fairy tell stories,please

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Specializes in Critical care, tele, Medical-Surgical.
... post a link to this fairy tell stories,please
Is this it?

Citing Obamacare, the Infirmary Health System this afternoon announced it would close its Infirmary West Hospital on Girby Road by the end of the month. ...

... Nix said Infirmary officials will help employees find jobs inside and outside the organization.

Officials said the closing would not affect patient care, with services transferring to other facilities. After the hospital closes on Oct. 31, officials said, some patients will be transferred to Mobile Infirmary. ...

... Nix did not specify in this statement how the health care reform law factored into the system's most recent decision, and he did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment this afternoon. ...

Citing Obamacare, Infirmary Health System announces it will close Infirmary West Hospital | al.com

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I am ready for "Obamacare", let's give it a chance. What we currently have is not working. I can't tell you the number of people we see with no insurance who delay care until it's to late and get either an early death or a massive debt. Everyone deserves healthcare.

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I'm glad to see that there is some effort on the part of the Administration to fix healthcare in the US. The Idea that the status quo is working is delusional. The oppositioin to Obamacare should focus on improving healthcare not simply opposing Obama at every turn. Being the party of "No" has gotten them another 4 years of Obama. congratulations.

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Specializes in geriatrics, IV, Nurse management.
Is this it?

Sounds like they needed a scape goat to defend their layoff. Terrible. I hope those nurses are able to find steady employment.

And I love how they always say it won't affect patient care. Of course it won't;)

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I saw it on the news. I looked it up on google and this was released about a month before I saw the tv story. This seems more reasonable.

http://m.omaha.com/om/pm_27428/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=WFCzGRlb

I believe things do need to change but I read the affordable care act in its entire form and I think people will be surprised how little the eldery will be covered, how one person (the head of health n human services) has the choice to cover people in the high risk pool or not cover them depending on if the federal budget has available funding. The government can offer their insurance plan at 150% the market price of insurance. Go read all 900 pages! How bout capping pharmaceutical and medical costs? I think thats a better option

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