Massachusetts home care workers win $15/hr starting wage: nation's first state-level $15-an-hour starting salary

The sorry reality is that we can't afford what we're spending now and harsh, deep cuts are coming. It isn't due to the ACA (Obamacare) or anything else besides the reality of how much we can spend on healthcare as a whole. We like to pretend that profit margins are as high as they claim (50% over labor) forgetting about office overhead from billing to administrative oversight to regulatory compliance. The electronic medical records aren't the glorious cleanup they were billed to be either. The systems are now a sitting target for an OPM style hack against a hospital or other provider with a lot of fines if they screw up. That leads to more expensive costs to manage it all and the circle never stops.

New regulations are helping to hold new costs down, but they haven't made things cost less or even stop the costs from rising. With a $15 per hour starting wage, they may find it cheaper to build a facility in another state with a lower wage to begin housing the people there instead. People are going to India for major surgery due to costs. It may not be long before we begin sending people to other states because of the cost of local care.

Finally, there is no magic fix that allows medical/home care worker pay to rise, benefits to improve, and expanding services while also making care cheaper and reducing spending on those services from the current trillion+. There are going to be a lot of harsh choices pushed soon and it is going to be interesting. AI via iPad in the form of an ordering system is holding down hiring and increasing profits at retail. Something to think about for higher worker costs in all areas.

tl;dr You can price yourself out of the market.

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