How will Trump/Ryan-care impact the Career School Industry?

The Career School Industry should be opposed to the proposed American Health Care Act which I call Trump/Ryan-care for reasons I’ll touch on later. The demand for healthcare professionals has increased exponentially since the passage and implementation of the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare which provided a new payment source to millions of Americans who previously could not obtain health insurance or otherwise pay for care. Health providers and insurers have responded to Obamacare’s attempt to make health coverage affordable by shifting the responsibility for providing some care from expensive physicians to lower paid professionals, especially nurses. Many previously lower-wage adults have retooled and trained for careers in all aspects of allied health, from medical billing and coding, to electronic medical records, to delivery of patient care. The explosion in demand for health care workers to meet the needs of newly covered Americans also led to growth in the number of educational institutions and allied health programs that prepare individuals to enter the field. However, these institutions are now in jeopardy.

Last week the Republican Congress released the proposed American Health Care Act (“AHCA”) which I call Trump/Ryan-care because it is Paul Ryan’s vision but President Trump is the one who has to sell it to his voters if it is to become law. I’m sure you’ve learned by now that the AHCA will remove over 20 million Americans from the health care rolls by drastically reducing federal subsidies. But the AHCA is actually worse than the system we had before Obamacare because the AHCA de-funds Medicaid by shifting the burden for paying for Medicaid from the federal government to state governments, most of which cannot and will not pay for it.

The removal of these patients (who were just beginning to get healthy enough to accommodate the market’s shift from treating illness to providing preventive care) will take us back to pre-2009 demand for health care services. Emergency rooms will once again become free primary care facilities that uninsured patients visit for colds and flu. The urgent care centers and other community health centers that have been popping up will no longer have paying patients. The drug rehab centers will return to treating mostly cash patients since insurers will stop covering mental health. This all means there will be fewer placement opportunities for health care graduates. And without the ability to place their graduates many institutions will be forced to shutter their doors (or at least close their allied health programs).

Thus, Trump/Ryan-care is a job-killer, a small business-killer, and, most of all, a patient-killer. If you own a school that has allied health programs, you should be on the phone to your Congressman, paying dues to your lobbying organization, and, just in case Trump/Ryan-care passes, figuring out what you’re going to do next. That is not gloom and doom; it’s just being a good businessperson.

Tweet