No nursing jobs in 2012 ???

2 Please look forward two years...do you think the job market (for RN's) will be worse than it is now? Of course the question is hypothetical, but I'm really concerned with socialized medicine and low wages for nurses.

Thanks for your comment!
Socialized medicine? Must be watching too much Faux News. I would think it would be better for the RN job market if there was universal healthcare.

I think it will be worse. Probably lots of foreign nurses flooding the market happy to accept $10 hr. as RN.

Quote from Gerry1888Socialized medicine? Must be watching too much Faux News. I would think it would be better for the RN job market if there was universal healthcare.

Press-Gainey may not be so relevant if we had government insurance.And we won't need to "thank them for choosing our hospital."No more "customer service/hotel type" influence?Hmmmmmm.....

Quote from Gerry1888Socialized medicine? Must be watching too much Faux News. I would think it would be better for the RN job market if there was universal healthcare.

Quote from Gerry1888Socialized medicine? Must be watching too much Faux News. I would think it would be better for the RN job market if there was universal healthcare.

i agree with belgarion... i think that regardless of how the healthcare bill goes,the job prospects for 2012 are probably going to be more dependent on which way the economy decides to jump.

At the acute care level I don't see how socialized medicine/universal coverage etc. will change much. People are going to the hospital now if they have coverage or not.What I have seen in my area is, the more money hospitals have directly correlates with quality of life for nursing, so....The question that needs to be asked: is there going to be more or less money flowing to hospitals under the proposals floating around congress? There are competing variable at work here; 1) those people we are taking care of who do not have coverage pay on average 5% of their bill. 2) Medicare/Medicaid reimburses hospitals at about 80% compared to private insurance. We can assume that a large number of the uninsured will move into some kind of a government run program that will reimburse at a similar rate to medicare (=more money to hospitals). At the same time what we are hearing is that the intention is for the government to "compete" with private insurance companies. If this comes to pass we can assume that there will be a number of people that are having a hard time paying for private insurance that will opt for the public insurance option (=less money for hospitals).Anyone's guess is as good as mine, but my suspicion is that as the government has more of a say in the exchange of health care dollars, the more health care employees will be treated like government employees- for better or for worse.One thing is for sure- Nursing is a freaking difficult career (think high turnover), and all signs point to there being an increase in the consumption of health care in the coming years which bodes well for nurses looking jobs. Don't listen to what you hear on this board about nurses not finding work. Listen closely - ALMOST everyone can find A nursing job if they are flexible/savvy job hunters. Also- you will never see a significant nominal decrease in average nursing wages, what we will probably see in the coming years is a decrease in the rate at which wages are increasing- even negative relative to inflation, but this is going to be the case with every profession... never $10/hr as the above poster said!

Quote from californiadreamingI think it will be worse. Probably lots of foreign nurses flooding the market happy to accept $10 hr. as RN.

"I'm really concerned with socialized medicine and low wages for nurses."Don't drink the kool-aid. Socialized anything is not on the horizon for this country.

Quote from JoPACURNPress-Gainey may not be so relevant if we had government insurance.And we won't need to "thank them for choosing our hospital."No more "customer service/hotel type" influence?Hmmmmmm.....

This is a scary thread. I don't know if projecting the job outlook is realistic or constructive. JMHO...