A friend is a physician in a moderately coronaplagued city here in the Northeast. She’s in a private discussion group for hospital workers. Since they actually do have some Covid-19 patients, they’re not in as bad financial shape as physicians, nurses, and other health care workers nationwide. However, they are having their hours, shifts, and pay cut…. except for the workers on H-1B visas.
Ordinarily, these folks are at least moderately pro-immigration. A caravan of Hondurans that crosses the border should be eligible for Medicaid soon enough, and certainly any children born to those Hondurans while they’re in the U.S. will be Medicaid-eligible. Medicaid will turn the “migrants” into “customers”.
Having their hours cut while the H-1B workers soldier on full-time at full pay, however, is apparently an unanticipated and bitter pill to swallow.
Where is the solidarity for International Workers’ Day?
(Personally, I think the rule makes sense. The H-1B workers do not have the flexibility to quit and work for another employer. So an employer of one of these indentured migrant servants shouldn’t have the right to cut hours and pay.)
Related:
- “Mayo Clinic announces sweeping pay cuts, furloughs”
- “The Untold Toll — The Pandemic’s Effects on Patients without Covid-19” (NEJM on the Americans who will die of non-Covid-19 issues because they don’t get regular health care during coronapanic)
H1-B’s are already paid so low compared to natives, it probably isn’t necessary to reduce their incomes. They’re also a lot higher educated. Does anyone even care what doctors think anymore? Politicians & CEO’s are who the media goes to 1st for virus cures.
When everyone at the hospital is fully employed PhilG never forget to remind us of our 18% gdp that goes to the healthcare system. Could this virus lower that percentage?
SteveG: You raise a fantastic question and it is one that I have wondered about. With much of the economy shut down, is health care now 25 percent of the U.S. economy? Or has the collapse of non-Covid non-emergency services compensated for this (or more than compensated for it)?