New health care bill..

[Keptonkurtis]

What does the new Health Care bill mean for Nurses?

Job wise? Finical Wise? Etc?

[CFitzRN, ADN]

I very much appreciate the sentiment, but they couldn't afford to do that in a million years! Oh wait... that doesn't seem to be a deterrent. Hey, maybe we'll get lucky!

[drmorton2b]

I simple see do more with less and increased burn out rate with nurses. Think burn out is bad now wait.

Hospitals pretty much have to treat people and street them to make money.

Nursing and other ancillary staff Pharmacy, etc, (sorry but its true and is upsetting) can in theory save the hospital money. Not make the hospital any money. So they cut these services the most.

Good nursing with decent staffing would allow more proactive care, which could save thousands $$$.

This will never happen. Its going to get worse. Be thick skinned and try to survive. Hospitals will cut stuff here and there. Don't need new blood pressure machines. No slide boards, etc.

More and more corporations/mergers will form mom and pop hospitals and nursing homes will close. Sure the same people may be working there.

You will still be able to find a job. Burn out rates will get hire/Most experienced hospital nurses have 25+ years on the job. The last of the "be a nurse or a teacher" generation of nurses that have been our mentors will be retiring very soon.

I suggest anyone going into nursing read some of the Suzanne Gordon books (all though a bit liberal on universal health care) it covers what nurses do. A lot of nursing students have no idea what the true role of a nurse is.

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

Yes, and have you noticed that they all s.u.c.k? They're all (along with the post office) running huge deficits. Using those programs to speak encouragingly about this new reform is not the most intelligent thing to do.

Medicares finances reflect the financial state of health care as a whole.

http://blog.prospect.org/blog/ezraklein/04_publicandprivateexpenditures1-thumb-500x290.jpg

http://blog.prospect.org/blog/ezraklein/allhealthspending.gif

SS spending is essentially flat.

And since Medicaid and Medicare pay for health services on the private market, this can only be fixed through broader health reform.

Health Care as a whole will eat 50% of GDP without reform.

We essentially have adopted the Bismarck model which evidence does show controls costs:

Boccuti and Moon also compare services that are covered by both Medicare and private insurers, finding that private insurance still experiences a higher cumulative growth rate per enrollee than Medicare over the 30-year period.

"Medicare's long-term success in holding down spending is partly a result of its structured payment systems and regulatory controls," said Marilyn Moon, senior fellow at the Urban Institute. "Reform proposals could rely on the ability of Medicare to hold down per enrollee costs as long as it continues to play a meaningful role in purchasing benefits and services, keeping in mind that Medicare cannot be an inadequate payer without risking patients' access to care."

Another view:

By now, you folks well know my obsession with pointing out that Medicare's costs will blow up not because of demographics, but because of the same cost growth afflicting the private sector Here, however, is a nice, colorful chart making the point:

And for what its worth SS will never run out of money......

And what happens if you accept that low-cost projection? When does the Social Security trust fund run out in that case? Never. It never runs out (here's the graph, if you're interested).

Yglesias has another graph:

[mari55]

Hi there, my name is favflu, and I am new to this forum.

Nurses should be the driving force behind this health care reform.

I agree completely.

[dana_8585]

I do home health. I wish that ultimately, if the patients are going to have public option, then clinicians can opt to work for the government. I would love to have a government job. I think that in home health, if we can cut some of the private businesses people out, since there are too many and they are money pits, then there will be money saved and nurses will still be able to do well. There are too many business people in healthcare that are getting a free ride. We don't need most of them to be babysitting us. Why not put the trust back in the caregivers?