How do you think Obama's plans for health insurance will affect nursing salaries?

[tejas-nurse]

How do you think Obama's plans for national health insurance will affect nursing salaries?

[mathwizard]

It is a no brainer answer. If hospitals make less money so will everyone else. Why would hospitals make less money. Because he is reducing payout on medicare and medicaid to fund all the new healthcare benefits/ programs. Just my opinion but it seems it is just a matter of time for salaries to take a hit. Hopefully I am wrong.

[wowza]

Even in the outpatient setting salaries will go down. As more and more people take the gov't heath plan, doctors will be paid less which means the nurse will also have to be paid less.

While I doubt this will drastically affect nursing employment, for those people who work behind the scenes like receptionist, billing people, transcriptionist, they will be hit hard.

[tejas-nurse]

Get ready for leaner times then, I guess.

[CRNA2007]

Not only will you get paid less your taxes are going through the roof.

[CPhT2RNstudent]

Higher taxes, and lower pay so we can cover dead beats (speaking generically). I know some people actually need them help. I don't understand why some people in healthcare want Osoma's plan.

[oramar]

I don't really know what the future holds. But I do know is what has happened in the past. That is that they usually cut pay and benefits when they are looking to cut cost. As we all know they have been asked to cut cost. It isn't that I don't approve of universal coverage, but I do wonder if it will fall on the backs of care takers.

[UKRNinUSA, RN]

Medicare funding is set to run out by 2019. What are mum and dad, granny and grandpa to do then? Buy private health insurance?(you know that either they will be refused coverage or will be unable to afford the exorbitant premiums) Or move to Oregon, where assisted suicide is legal? What is that going to do for your daily census, your job security?

The current system is unsustainable -accounts of the failures of the current system abound. Frankly I think that worrying about how Obama's plan will affect your salary is a rather short-sighted view of the healthcare crisis. If you are so worried about your salary, form a union and get some collective bargaining going. You might just get a raise!

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

The real question is whether access to health care is a basic human right or a privilege. Our current rate of health care inflation is 16% heading for 20%. The privilege model is killing US manufacturing along with real wage increases.

It won't hurt our salaries in the least for administrative costs to be reined in. I was talking with a gal I know who is under treatment for some type of cancer. One week of treatment was billed at 45,000 dollars of which 12-15 thousand was spent on administration/profit. Can we really afford to continue to spend 25% of our health care dollars on administration?

[HM2VikingRN, RN]