What will Obama's health care reform proposals do to Nurses Salaries?

Answer 1

As nurses are probably the most underpaid professionals in industry today, he will not specifically target their salaries. However...many hospitals, in order to protect their bottom line, will target all healthcare salaries...much like they are starting to do now. Most of us don't have the luxury to be protected by unions. The same unions that block vote for democrats, thus Mr. Obama, instead of identifying the unions as the culprits in contributing to the high cost of health care by holding....for instance, GM "hostage" by making them pay for their "premium" health care coverage, he instead blamed the corporation (GM) for paying such high costs for said health care benefits.

Obama, McCain, Biden, Hilary and any other politician that pushes for health care reform will indirectly hurt nurses' and any other health care workers' salary as the CEO's have tunnel vision and only see salary cuts as the way to decrease the financial problems they face.

Many people argue that healthcare reform (if done right with a public option to be in competition with the insurance giants making them keep their prices down), will increase the number of Americans able to get health services since they will be more able to afford the lower premiums and out of pocket costs of care once reform is enacted. Today, many are going without health care because they can not afford the high costs of the insurance or the uninsured care.

If there is affordable healthcare, the number of patients increases because they have new coverage from a public option that they can afford, providers such as hospitals and doctors will have increased revenue from the increased demand for services, and will not have to lower staff or staff salaries.

A properly designed healthcare reform package should help to stabilize providers' cash flow, increase utilization and quality of health care, and improve staffing ratios and improve the overall health and wellness of the US people. The hospitals and providers are now struggling due to inappropriate denials of coverage of care by insurance companies. These administrative/red tape hoops and dances cost the providers significant administrative costs of appealing the coverage denials, filing and refiling claims, doing collections of accounts receivable from patients without the ability to pay, and causes a waste of money that could be being used to hire, train, and keep top nursing professionals.

Most nurses support healthcare reform as originally proposed by President Obama, with a public option.