1.5 Million Unemployed Health-Care Workers Signal a Failed System
Fee-for-service has been a disaster for medical providers in the pandemic, and there is a better alternative. But will anybody switch?
There’s no fee for hand-washing advice.
Photographer: Tom Pennington/Getty Images
Of all the industries to have shed lots of jobs since Covid-19 reached our shores, perhaps the most surprising to casual observers like me has been health care. We’re in the middle of a pandemic, and 1.5 million U.S. health-care workers have been laid off or furloughed since February.
Some of the job losses become more understandable as one looks through the above list. Of course dentists’ offices have had to be shuttered — the work of dentists and dental hygienists probably exposes them to more coronavirus risk than that of just about any other profession. And sure, going to the chiropractor or optometrist or podiatrist (among the “other health practitioners” in the table) isn’t really going to be a top priority in the early weeks of a pandemic. But hospitals have been shedding employees too, as have physicians’ offices, including a lot of primary-care practices. My primary-care doctor in Manhattan has been busier than ever, treating Covid-19 patients over the phone and sometimes in person (catching and recovering from the disease along the way), but has still seen a collapse in revenue and had to lay off staff.