The U.S. healthcare system is in crisis. A Supreme Court ruling could make things worse
Mass deportations would be felt across hospitals and emergency rooms, which already face persistent staffing shortfalls. The long-term healthcare sector will suffer the greatest disruptions, experts say. (Image credit: Spencer Platt)
Mass deportations would be felt across hospitals and emergency rooms, which already face persistent staffing shortfalls. The long-term healthcare sector will suffer the greatest disruptions, experts say.
(Image credit: Spencer Platt)
Healthcare workers rally at a Manhattan union headquarters to show support for the Haitian and Syrian communities after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration could end temporary protected status for potentially millions of foreign nationals from countries experiencing conflict and violence. The decision means that over 330,000 Haitians and Syrians could lose their work authorizations and ability to remain in the country. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption
Amid the flurry of consequential Supreme Court decisions that have come down recently, it's the one about temporary protected status that has America's healthcare sector the most worried.
The ruling last week cleared the way for the Trump administration to cancel TPS for Haitians and Syrians. Experts say deporting Haitian TPS recipients will have a catastrophic impact on the nationwide healthcare workforce crisis — a workforce that is hugely dependent on immigrant labor.
The pain will be felt across hospitals and emergency rooms, which already operate under persistent staffing shortfalls, but it's the long-term care sector, including senior care facilities and home care, that will suffer the greatest disruptions, said Steffie Woolhandler, a distinguished professor of health policy at City University of New York at Hunter College and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School.
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"It's going to be a disaster in the Boston area, where a lot of our nursing home and home care aides are Haitian," Woolhandler told NPR. But beyond that, she added, "If the United States becomes inhospitable to noncitizens, which I think Trump is doing, we're going to have a lot of problems staffing our entire healthcare system."