Sequestration

If you look anywhere in the news these days your bound to find something about sequestration.  In this case sequestration refers to budget cuts that were just put in place this month.  The cuts, however, were planned in the Budget Control Act of 2011.  The government spends tax dollars on many industries, but healthcare is one of the major players in this cut, taking up 3.6% of the GDP (Wikipedia: Medicare (US)). 

So how will sequestration affect healthcare?  In a study done by Tipp Ubach, a firm that specializes in economic impact studies, it was found that sequestration could cost us 766,000 healthcare related jobs by 2021.  Both directly and indirectly the healthcare industry and it’s supporters are going to be hit by the spending cuts.

I hope this study overestimates the effect sequestration will have.  I imagine we’ll see some job loss but we will also see some healthcare business adaptations. Doctors and patients will be on the frontlines as the healthcare spending cuts roll out, I hope they won’t be disappointed.