New jobs for Dallas-Fort Worth are a welcome side effect of healthcare reform

One argument for reforming healthcare is that it could save U.S. jobs. Don’t be surprised if it creates a lot of new ones, too, with North Texas being a major beneficiary.

Every reform plan being discussed would cover some of the 47 million uninsured in America, and Texas has more of them than just about anywhere else. Reformers also are pushing for more treatment in the doctor’s office, rather than costly emergency rooms.

Under these scenarios, we’ll need more nurses, aides, physician assistants and family doctors. And if reform succeeds in embracing technology and electronic records, as planned, there should be higher demand for tech workers and data processors, too — another likely plum for this region.

Healthcare jobs will be added throughout the country, but North Texas is well-positioned to get more than its usual share, as it has for the past decade. Since 1999, Dallas-Fort Worth has added healthcare jobs every single month, and in the past four years, they’ve been growing at double the national rate.

For the 12 months that ended in June, this area increased its education and healthcare jobs by an amazing 6.6 percent, at a time when the local, state and national economy reported a net loss in total jobs.

The health industry here is now larger than in 31 states, with more than 300,000 workers, according to a local group that tracks trends. North Texas has a big presence in every aspect of the business, including hospitals, medical schools, health insurance, retirement homes, billing and biotechnology.

Any national changes that lead to more expansive healthcare will give the region a boost, and some institutions are already reacting to growing demand. The University of Texas at Arlington plans to double enrollment in its nursing program in the next three years, and other nursing schools in North Texas are talking about expansion.

They say that large numbers of qualified applicants have been turned down because of limited space and faculty.

The healthcare industry is already the brightest spot in the national economy, adding jobs while almost every other sector declines. In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the trends have been even more pronounced.

The area lost a total of 58,300 jobs in the 12 months that ended in June. But the education and health services category, dominated by the health portion, added 21,400 in the same period.

The only other sector that reported a gain was government, up 11,500. (Thank you, stimulus.)

President Barack Obama and other supporters of health reform haven’t pushed the job-creation angle in their appeals to the public. Maybe that’s because it would focus attention on a more thorny point: How are we going to pay for it?

"Healthcare is a very labor-intensive industry, and there’s a real dilemma, because job creation equals higher costs," said Bernard Weinstein, an economist at the University of North Texas.

He says the challenge is to develop a more productive work force in the industry — to get better health outcomes for what we’re spending. Nobody says that reform is going to save money, not when a major goal is to provide health insurance for millions of additional Americans.

The estimated price tag for reform is about $90 billion a year, and Obama hopes to get much of the money through greater efficiencies and eliminating subsidies for insurance companies. Opponents fear that government funding will have to make up a growing portion of the nation’s healthcare bill and that the costs will drive up the deficit.

Many complain that healthcare spending is already growing way too fast, eclipsing inflation by a wide margin for more than a decade. Employers say the expense is hurting their competitiveness, globally and at home. And families say that rising premiums and out-of-pocket costs have outstripped their gains in income.

One study by the Rand Corp. concluded that a 10 percent increase in healthcare costs would lead to 120,000 fewer jobs nationwide, as employers reacted to the higher expense. But that medical spending has a flip side, spurring job-creation in the healthcare industry.

In the past 12 months, North Texas has lost almost 32,000 jobs in professional and business services, 20,000 jobs in trade, 14,000 in manufacturing, and 10,000 in mining and construction.

Dallas-Fort Worth’s gain in education and health services was three times higher than the national increase for the category. North Texas far eclipsed Houston, Boston and New York, all better known for their world-class medical communities.

Attribute much of the growth to a growing population, the same strong current that has made Dallas-Fort Worth one of the fastest-growing economies for two decades. Young people have long come here to make their careers, and more retirees are relocating to be near their adult children, leading to a surge in retirement communities — and employment.

Construction for healthcare is projected to reach $10 billion in the next decade, according to the Health Industry Council of North Texas. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment in the healthcare industry will grow at almost twice the rate as all other industries.

If reform passes, the numbers will be even bigger, and North Texas will discover another gear for its job machine.