Factories fading, hospitals step in

Wall Street Journal (subscription required), April 15, 2008

Medical facilities are replacing factories as healthcare begins to fuel local economies across the country, but there are downsides to healthcare's ever-increasing role. A community that relies on health jobs can end up with a weaker economy because it is overly dependent on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Greater inequality is a risk in healthcare, too--there tends to be a wider income gap between what the highest- and lowest-paid workers earn than there is in manufacturing.