News clips: Health jobs see steady growth, premiums to rise, and a “frustrating” war on cancer
Health and social services jobs continue to grow
Washington state has lost 145,000 jobs since early last year, the Seattle Times reports in its monthly looked a the economic trends in the Puget Sound region.
And a growing number of Washington residents seem resigned that recovery from the recession will be long and slow, according to new survey conducted by the Elway Poll.
The upshot, writes Elway: “Economists may be saying the recession is over, but Washingtonians see the current conditions as the new normal for at least the next year.”
Almost every sector—including government, retail, professional services, and aerospace—have seen losses over the past year, except healthcare and social services.
Recession has barely slowed growth in this most resilient of the private sectors: annual growth is averaging 3.9 percent this year.
To learn more:
- Read Where the Jobs Are and Poll finds subdued outlook for economy in the Seattle Times.
M.D. Anderson: “the frontline of a frustrating war”
In a moving article, New York Times health reporter Gina Kolata profiles M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, the largest freestanding cancer hospital in the world where nearly 90,000 people a year go for treatment.
Patients come “looking for hope,” Kolata writes. “But there is no mistaking what this place is: the front line of the frustrating war on a still largely incurable disease.”
In the article, Kolata profiles patients who come to the center and the doctors and nurses who work there. She writes:
Anderson is a world where the best medicine has to offer is often far from enough. The odds are still grim, and while there are exhilarating recoveries, the exhausting, dispiriting road traveled by many patients comes into sharp relief.
To learn more:
- Read Kolata’s article: A place where cancer is the norm.
Premiums for small businesses expected to rise sharply
Reed Abelson reports in the New York Times that small businesses can expect to see premiums for their employees health insurance to jump 15 percent on average next year.
Wall Street is in part to blame, Abelson writes:
The higher premiums at least partly reflect the inexorable rise of medical costs, which is forcing Medicare to raise premiums, too. Health insurance bills are also rising for big employers, but because they have more negotiating clout, their increases are generally not as steep.
Higher medical costs aside, some experts say they think the insurance industry, under pressure from Wall Street, is raising premiums to get ahead of any legislative changes that might reduce their profits.
To learn more:
- Read Abelson’s article: Small business faces sharp rise in health costs
Tough economy changes American’s attitudes towards health reform says Seattle’s McDermott
Economic hard times are making American’s more supportive of health care reform, Rep. Jim McDermott told Robert Pear of the New York Times.
When President Bill Clinton tried and failed to pass health-care reform in the early 1990s, the economy was on the upswing, job prospects were looking up, and most people were confident that they would have health coverage, Pear writes.
Pear quotes McDermott on situation today.
“The mentality in the country is different,” said Mr. McDermott, a psychiatrist who has served in Congress for two decades. “In 1993, we were talking about the uninsured as ‘them.’ Now it turns out this is for us. When a bank like Washington Mutual in Seattle lays off 3,000 people, they lose health insurance. Millions of people with insurance are asking, ‘What if I lose my job?’ ”
To learn more:
- Read Pear’s article Democrats see a positive in a bad economy.
