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Affordable Care Act Creates Jobs

National Healthcare Workers Association

An official with the Kentucky Health and Family Services Cabinet says the federal Affordable Care Act has brought a billion dollars into the state this year and has created thousands of jobs.

Eric Friedlander is deputy secretary of the cabinet and was testified on Monday (Nov. 17) on the state’s Medicaid expansion. He appeared before House and Senate members of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee.       

Friedlander says initial projections were that the ACA would spawn 17-thousand jobs in Kentucky and more than half of them are already in place. He says they’ve helped drive down Kentucky’s unemployment rate.

“About three thousand jobs, additional jobs, just in healthcare alone. Another eight thousand that are administrative in nature, so we think we’re actually on track to that number. For the first time in the history of this Commonwealth, unemployment went down in all 120 counties of the state.”

Friedlander says Kentucky hospitals have seen a tremendous decline in their rates of uncompensated care. He says, of the additional billion dollars in federal support the state has received by expanding its Medicaid program, more than 250-million has gone directly to hospitals.

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