If youre looking for a new job, as more Americans are these days, there couldnt be a surer bet than the health-care sector. Of the 665,000 jobs the economy added in 2012, 158,000 of them have been in health care. Even when the economy was shedding huge numbers of jobs in 2008 and 2009, the sector was still growing:

The health-care sector keeps getting bigger largely because our health-care needs keep growing: Americans are getting older. At the same time, study after study finds there arent enough doctors to care for them. This all should make a field such as nursing a pretty certain slam dunk, right?

Wrong: David Glenn, a nursing student at University of Maryland who blogs at Notes on Nursing, flags a new study showing that nearly a third of recent nursing graduates are having trouble finding jobs.

The National Student Nurses Association surveyed 3,733 nursing students in September 2011, about four months after their graduation. Among them, 36 percent said they were not yet employed. It wasnt for lack of effort: 26 percent reported difficulty getting a job in their preferred specialty, while 55 percent couldnt find employment in a preferred geographic area.

A lot of this could have to do with older nurses staying, during a tough economy, longer than had been expected. A separate survey, this one of nurses employers, found that the majority of institutions that hire nurses have a pretty low vacancy rate, less than 5 percent. The vacancy rate for bedside nurses continues to be lower than typical and is a clear indication that nurses are binding themselves to the workforce with many delaying retirement, the report from Nursing Solutions, Inc. found.

A lot of it also has to do with geography. As mentioned earlier, more than half of the unemployed nursing school graduates said they couldnt find a job in the geographic region they preferred. In health reform, theres a lot of talk about impending doctor and nurse shortages. But some would argue our problem is less of a shortage and more of a poor distribution of resources: Health-care professionals end up concentrated in metropolitan areas, with few to serve those in rural communities.

That seems to be true for nurses. About 83 percent live in large metropolitan areas, according to the Health Resources and Service Administration. Graduates may encounter more demand looking in more rural areas, such as Nevada, which has 604 nurses for every 100,000 people (one of the countrys lowest rates). The nursing jobs may be available, but not necessarily where theyre desired by recent nursing graduates.

Continued here:

The health-care sector is booming. So why are nurses having trouble finding jobs?

INDIANAPOLIS A dispute over the new health care law's tax hike on medical device-makers became a proxy last week for the larger philosophical differences between Indiana's two U.S. Senate hopefuls.

It started when the Republican candidate, state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, said at a stop in Churubusco, Ind., that the tax increase is a "terrible thing that threatens jobs" and linked it to the Democratic candidate, U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly.

Donnelly's camp then responded by accusing Mourdock of distorting the three-term congressman's record. He supported the health care law, but opposed the medical device tax hike and has worked to repeal that portion.

If you're grading the truthfulness of their arguments, both Mourdock and Donnelly get partial credit.

Had Donnelly and some of his conservative Democratic colleagues such as former U.S. Rep. Brad Ellsworth, who was hammered over this issue in his failed 2010 U.S. Senate campaign, not voted for the health care law in the first place, the medical device tax would not exist.

The 2.3 percent excise tax on sales above $5 million for medical device-makers was expected to raise about $30 billion over a decade an important step toward footing the law's price tag for a major Medicaid expansion and more.

However, Donnelly's been a vocal critic of the tax, which would put the pinch on areas like Warsaw, Ind., that are known as industry hubs. He cites it as the top example of how the health care law needs "fixing."

And he's done something about it. Donnelly co-sponsored a measure approved by the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday that would repeal the tax.

Thus, Indiana Democratic Party spokesman Ben Ray hit Mourdock on Friday over his criticism of Donnelly.

"This attack is dishonest, and it's exactly what's wrong with Richard Mourdock's 'my way or the highway' mentality. Joe Donnelly is working with both Republicans and Democrats to repeal the medical device tax, something that wouldn't be possible if he played by Mourdock's rules," Ray said.

See the original post:

Medical device tax becomes proxy for philosophical dispute between U.S. Senate candidates

Log in to manage your products and services from The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune.

Don't have an account yet? Create an account

E-Mail or Member ID

Password

Remember Me Log In

See the original post:

Treating You Better for Less

Deputy Editorial Page Editor

First, a word about what this weeks column is not about.

Its not about whether Obamacare is the best prescription to cure the drawbacks and disparities in Americas health-care system.

Its not about policy buzzwords like individual mandates, risk pools or severability.

Its about just one question: Can the government order its citizens to act against their religious faith?

You probably thought that question had been answered more than 200 years ago. The Founding Fathers hammered out the First Amendment to the Constitution ensuring the free exercise of religion without government meddling.

The White House thinks otherwise.

PRESIDENT OBAMAS health-care initiative includes a mandate directed at religiously affiliated employers and their health providers. They must offer insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs such as the morning-after pill.

In the words of John Garvey, president of the Catholic University of America: Its like compelling Jehovahs Witnesses to salute the flag, or Quakers to fight, or Jews to eat pork.

Of course such a mandate runs utterly contrary to the Catholic Churchs unwavering respect for human life. Its an unshakable pillar of Catholic faith and a component of its formidable care network 56 Catholic health-care systems nationwide, whose hospitals employ more than 750,000 workers. One in six U.S. patients regardless of faith are treated in Catholic hospitals.

Follow this link:

Health-care mandate is unhealthy for religious expression