The state has a particular need for doctors given its, uh, aged population. Those demographics were already putting Florida
18,000 doctors in the hole by 2035, according to a study by the Safety Net Hospital Alliance of Florida and the Florida Hospital Association.
What that study couldn’t foresee was DeSantis’ war on his state’s health care providers further exacerbating that shortage. One doctor in Tampa
packed up immediately after Florida passed a six-week abortion ban. “We have two other partners right now who have left Florida. We’re in the process of leaving Florida,” said Dr. Rachel Rapkin. She and her husband are both OB/GYNs. "I see a lot of the recruitment activity taking place, trying to recruit new OB/GYNs, specifically to Florida, and people are saying 'I would never go there.'” Indeed, the stats are clear: New doctors are
avoiding states with restrictive abortion laws, with the Association of American Medical Colleges finding a 10.5% drop in residency applicants in such states.
“We already have maternity deserts -- places in the state where there are no OB providers,” Rapkin said. “Absolutely that’s going to get worse.”
But it’s not just abortion bans driving doctors away. The state’s ban on gender-affirming health care for minors is also having an impact.
“Our primary service line is gender affirming treatment, but we’re a community healthcare clinic that does primary care as well,”
said Joseph Knoll, CEO of Spektrum Health, a central Florida clinic specializing in medical and mental health services for the LGBTQ+ community, to the nonprofit news site Coda. While the ban might be narrow, the fact that his clinic also provides primary care services means that shutting it down stifles broader health care access. “Gender affirming treatment represents somewhere between 50% and 60% of our services. Obviously, our biggest concern is the care of people that need to access our services, but we have to be realistic. We don’t have room in our budget to have half of our revenue gone.”
Despite the desperate need for medical professionals, the ban is driving doctors out. “For [his trans staffers] to stay in the state of Florida, they have to accept the lack of access to health care while working at a healthcare organization,” Knoll told Coda. “I mean, it’s nonsense.”
CONSERVATIVE POLICIES CHASE WORKERS AWAY
With a 3% unemployment rate, which is below the national average, Florida businesses are facing extreme difficulties
finding workers. So what better way for the state’s Republicans to make things worse than by chasing away immigrant workers?
DeSantis signed restrictive new anti-immigrant legislation on May 10, blaming it on “Biden’s border crisis.” NPR provided an
overview of the law:
Among its provisions, the strict new state legislation limits social services for undocumented immigrants, allocates millions more tax dollars to expand DeSantis' migrant relocation program, invalidates driver's licenses issued to undocumented people by other states, and requires hospitals that get Medicaid dollars to ask for a patient's immigration status.
But the most worrisome measures — for businesses and undocumented immigrants alike — are the host of penalties for those [businesses] who violate new employment mandates.
It turns out that DeSantis’ anti-business actions extend
beyond the Walt Disney Company and into all sectors of Florida’s economy. The state of Florida is now actively punishing businesses that hire undocumented workers.
The Farmworkers Association of Florida isn’t happy. “The Farmworkers Association of Florida, a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for social and environmental justice with farmworkers, estimates that there are about 300,000 farm workers in Florida who live in the state illegally, making up about 60% of the state’s farm workers,”
reports the Pensacola News Journal. It is quite obvious that Florida’s agriculture industry simply cannot function without those workers. The same goes for other industries, like construction and hospitality.
You may have seen this viral video of a town hall meeting of Florida Republicans responding to angry constituents on their loss of workers.
(full article online)
Republican presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis wants America to look like Florida. Apparently, he wants America to lose doctors, teachers, and immigrant laborers, then sink underwater. Rarely are a party’s policy consequences so stark....
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