A northern-Michigan hospital is cutting 43 positions in part because of costs related to the Affordable Care Act, its CEO says. David Zechman of McLaren Northern Michigan told a local television station the layoffs were “something that we had no choice in doing.”
Zechman cited the changes to Medicaid and Medicare under the health-care law that cut reimbursement rates for the hospital’s services. “We still have the same costs of taking care of patients, but it’s hard to keep doing the same things you’re doing if you’re paid less for the same amount of costs and services you provide — it’s just basic economics,” he said.
McLaren Northern Michigan joins a growing trend of health-care providers and hospital cutting jobs. In January, the Labor Department reported the number of hospital jobs in America, which has been rising steadily for years, dropped by 4,500 jobs.
Another local hospital, Munson Healthcare, said that changes to health care from the federal level will result in a $150 million cut to their budget over the next ten years, and that it would cut costs elsewhere to avoid eliminating jobs for now.