Posted on 03/03/2024 2:53:49 PM PST by NobleFree
Des Moines, Iowa — The Iowa House has voted to set limits for the pay of temporary nursing staff working in Iowa hospitals and nursing homes.
A traveling nurse could be paid no more than 150 percent of the statewide average wage being paid to full-time healthcare staff who provide nursing services. The bill is a priority for House Republicans, who contend temp agencies are reaping too much of the extra money the legislature has provided nursing homes. Representative Timi Brown-Powers, a Democrat from Waterloo, is a therapist at Covenant Medical Center in Waterloo, She says the bill addresses a big budget problem for hospitals and nursing homes.
The bill passed on an 80-to-17 vote. Representative John Forbes, a Democrat from Urbandale who opposed the bill, says there appeared to be some price gouging going on as healthcare employment agencies responded to workforce vacancies during the pandemic.
None of the House Republicans outlined their reasons for voting for the pay caps during the six-minute-long debate of the bill, which now goes to the Senate for consideration.
You can’t legislate the law of supply and demand
Iowa House is 64-36 Republican.
Travel nurses won’t work in Iowa then, if I understand correctly.
Commies will try.
Or the state will import a whole lot of foreign nurses...
You can’t legislate the law of supply and demand
I work as a substitute teacher, and my pay is far less than the teachers I’m replacing. I’m not complaining, just pointing it out.
I remember back under Nixon’s wage and price freeze. Eventually ruled illegal by USSC.
“...gets paid substantially more than nurses working full time seems a bit odd to say the least.”
No, it simply means that the market has decided that nurses in Iowa are not being paid what the market demands.
Betting this is being lobbied for by Big Med.
Does the state of Iowa also regulate hospital CEO pay ?
What about traveling doctors ?
No, it simply means that the market has decided...
So, minimum wage, no skill fast food places aren’t paying enough, but skilled nurses are being payed too much?
Big Med? Maybe union influence?
Travel nurses are considered to be educated enough and have the clinical skills to work in any environment independently, thus the huge pay difference. They can travel because they’ve worked years in their specialty. When I traveled, I was better educated and trained than the nurses I worked with, as well as most of the doctors. Travel nurses also go where the money is, so they won’t be going to Iowa.
Screw the ‘budget’ problem. It’s a free market issue; not a government issue.
I believe the idea is those nurses live out of a suitcase in a new environment and are expected to come up to speed with current staff almost immediately, to solve crotical staffing issues. Harder than it looks and sounds, maintaining licensure and certifications in multiple states, learning and knowing multiple different electronic charting systems and delivering excellent care right out of the gate in crisis situations. I don’t begrudge them what they can get.
I believe the idea is those nurses live out of a suitcase in a new environment and are expected to come up to speed with current staff almost immediately, to solve crotical staffing issues. Harder than it looks and sounds, maintaining licensure and certifications in multiple states, learning and knowing multiple different electronic charting systems and delivering excellent care right out of the gate in crisis situations. I don’t begrudge them what they can get.
When my dad was in the hospital for a month last year, two of the best (IMO) nurses left to become ‘traveling’ nurses. Both were single, looking forward to going new places & of course, being paid very well. Iowa won’t have to worry about paying traveling nurses because they’ll go where the money is & it’s not going to be Iowa.
Could be that the traveling nurses are independent
contractors who have to pay all there taxes ect.
They would need the extra pay to make up the different
Waiting for a huge influx of Pilipino nurses. They will work cheap.
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