THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

As the economy has begun to chug along nicely in the wake of what little the Republicans allowed previous President Obama to do for the economy, The Republicans have chosen to rip the heart out of the recovery. The repeal of ACA/Obamacare promises to put thousands of people out of work and render ordinary doctor visits unaffordable to millions.

From Akron to Youngstown and Canton to Cleveland, as in cities and towns across the country, workers who once walked out of factories at the end of each shift now stream out of hospitals.

While manufacturing employment has fallen nearly 40 percent in northeastern Ohio since 2000, the number of health care jobs in the region has jumped more than 30 percent over the same period. In Akron, the onetime rubber capital of the world, only one of the city’s 10 largest employers still makes tires. Three are hospitals.

“People who used to make deliveries to factories are now making them to hospitals,” said Samuel D. DeShazior, Akron’s deputy mayor for economic development.

Akron’s transformation is echoed in places as varied as Los Angeles, Birmingham, Ala., and Pittsburgh, along with rural areas like Iron County, Mo., where health care accounts for one-fifth of all employment.

The outsize economic role of the American health care industry heightens the risks posed by the Republicans’ effort in Washington to repeal the Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010 under President Barack Obama, and it comes at a delicate moment for the broader economy.

While the government reported Friday that unemployment was at its lowest point in more than a decade, the health care industry has been an engine for much of that hiring, adding jobs at more than three times the rate of the rest of the economy since 2007.

Nor is the growth limited to hospitals. With help from the vast expansion of Medicaid enrollment that began three years ago, nursing homes, outpatient centers and medical labs have also grown, turning a fragmented industry into a strong political force.

Governors on both sides of the aisle, as well as many moderate Republicans on Capitol Hill, have expressed concern over whether the repeal will hurt local economies, especially in places where health care has softened the blow from struggling industries like retailing now or manufacturing in the past.

Moreover, in a recovery plagued by uneven growth and widening income inequality, the sector has been a reliable source of steady gains. Health care now equals almost one-fifth of gross domestic product, up from 13 percent in 2000, and it is poised to leapfrog retailing and leisure and hospitality as the second-largest source of overall employment, after professional and business services, accounting for one in eight private sector jobs.

All this The Tangerine Shitgibbon wants to destroy because Republicans hung the name Obama on it and he just can't stand anything that may smell of Obama's success. The comparison between the two presidents is striking, even if you are not trying to compare.