How the Educational Funding Provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Will Affect the Nursing Shortage in the United States
![handle is hein.journals/nwjlsopo11 and id is 54 raw text is: Copyright 2016 by Northwestern University School ofLaw Vol. 11, Issue 1(2016)
Northwestern Journal of Law and Social Policy
HOW THE EDUCATIONAL FUNDING
PROVISIONS OF THE PATIENT
PROTECTION AND AFFORDABLE CARE
ACT WILL AFFECT THE NURSING
SHORTAGE IN THE UNITED STATES
Kathleen M. Fischer, R.N., B.S.N., J.D.
I. INTRODUCTION
The United States spends more on health care than any other industrialized nation
in the world.1 From 1969 to 2006, total U.S. health care spending rose from $900 billion
to $2 trillion;2 in 2010, it accounted for 17.9% of the nation's gross domestic product
(GDP).3 This increase in health care spending reflects the U.S. population's overall
growth, collective health, and rapid rate of aging,4 as well as advancements in medical
technology, individual income gains, and improved health insurance coverage.5
Despite this increase in health care spending, the United States has fallen short of
meeting its citizens' health care needs. As a stark example, even though the United States
spent more than $2.5 billion on health care in 2010,6 as many as forty-eight million
Americans comprising 18.2% of the population-were uninsured at that time.7
Substantial systemic changes are needed to solve these health care problems, and soon;
economists agree that the current rate of growth in U.S. health care spending cannot be
sustained.8
1 PETER I. BUERHAUS ET AL., THE FUTURE OF THE NURSING WORKFORCE IN THE UNITED STATES: DATA,
TRENDS, AND IMPLICATIONS 25 (2009). Using available data from 2012, the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that the United States spent 16.9% of its GDP on health
care. By contrast, its peer countries-including Japan, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Austria, Germany,
Switzerland, and France-spent between 10.3% and 11.6% of their GDPs on health care. See Health
Resources, OECD DATA, https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm (last visited Apr. 23, 2015).
2 BUERHAUS ET AL., supra note 1, at 26.
3 NAT'L CTR. FOR HEALTH STATISTICS, HEALTH, UNITED STATES, 2012 320 (2012) [hereinafter HUS 2012],
available at http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus12.pdf. In 2010, health care expenditures in the United
States amounted to more than $2,593 billion. Id.
4 BUERHAUS ET AL., supra note 1, at 59.
5 Julie Topoleski, Federal Spending on the Government's Major Health Care Programs Is Projected to
Rise Substantially Relative to GDP, CONG. BUDGET OFFICE BLOG (Sept. 18, 2013),
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44582.
6 HUS 2012, supra note 3, at 320.
? See id. at 351.
8 Topoleski, supra note 5 (noting that [t]he growth of health care spending cannot exceed economic
growth indefinitely, because if it did, total spending on health care would eventually account for all of the
country's economic output-an impossible outcome.).
54](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/nwjlsopo11&div=5&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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