When it comes to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, better known as Obamacare, it’s safe to say that almost nothing has gone according to plan. Neither Obamacare’s critics nor its supporters have accurately predicted how the law’s implementation would play out in the real world.
Soon after Obamacare was signed into law, for instance, Republicans were quick to call it a “job killer.”. According to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, however, unemployment has been declining, and the number of new jobs created has been steadily rising, since 2010 — implying that Obamacare has not been a detriment to the employment situation inside the United States.
One of the most profound, and perhaps surprising, ways Obamacare has made a positive impact on the economy is by driving up the demand for workers in the healthcare sector. In its latest jobs report, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics noted:
In December, healthcare employment rose by 39,000, with most of the increase occurring in ambulatory healthcare services (+23,000) and hospitals (+12,000). Job growth in healthcare averaged 40,000 per month in 2015, compared with 26,000 per month in 2014.
The underlying reason for this surge in employment in the healthcare sector is the upswing in the number of people that now have health insurance under Obamacare. According to a recent Gallup Poll, for instance, there has been a marked decline in the number of uninsured adults aged 18 or higher since Obamacare’s implementation in 2013:
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