About 13 years ago, I worked at coal mining company, followed by a hospital chain, both in their IT departments. It was President Obama’s 1st and 2nd term. I worked for Arch Coal (I just fount out they merged with Consol Energy and formed as Core Natural Resources) between 01/2012 and 04/2013, and worked for Mercy Health between 11/2013 and 05/2015.
Both industries are regulated and both were impacted by President Obama and his policies, plus for hospital, Obama Care (the official name is Affordable Care Act) was passed in the congress in year 2010.
Coal Mining
I recall once the environmentalists and anti-mountain-top coal mining people protested outside the City Place One, where Arch Coal HQ office is. The protest was a surprise one, and we had some commotion that morning. Half of the Creve Coeur police department was there that day. And honestly, I was not happy because we had to evacuate once due to the smoke – the smoke was there because the police had to use some tools (saws) to cut off the metal chains the protesters used to chain themselves to the potteries (plants) they sneaked in, as a disguise to enter the building.
Healthcare (Hospital)
In May 2013, I decided to step out from the Arch Coal, and I worked at Enterprise Holdings Inc as a contractor, with a focus on in house iPad app development. But that project didn’t work out and my contractor position came to end earlier than I thought. Fortunately, I interviewed at Mercy Health a few months earlier, so I asked the Mercy Recruiter (who was a recruiter at Technology Partner and whom I worked with before the Arch Coal job). The hiring manager at Mercy gave me offer quickly and I joined them in November 2013. About one year after I started at Mercy Technology Solutions (MTS, the information technology arm of Mercy Health, which is the hospital chain of Mercy), the layoff rumor started to swirl around. Actually, it was not rumor, and it was reality. In June 2015 I jumped ship again (on my own terms) to Mastercard, and while credit card/financial services industry is heavily regulated, Mastercard actually has a more stable business than both the mining and healthcare industry, at least financially speaking, due to its highway toll like business model and duopoly position in the industry.
When I was researching this, I happened to see my old blog post too – My analogies on healthcare reform protest.
Impact
With Trump return to the WH, and DOGE team cutting the government funds, as well as rules and regulations right and left, this has made people or localities who depends on or count on the federal government lives harder. For example, this morning I heard this story from STLPublicRadio – Trump’s federal cuts could devastate St. Louis | STLPR. Note I don’t expect this will have much impact on me, because this is impact St. Louis city, while I live in the neighboring St. Louis County.
(YT, Washington State) WATCH: Gov. Ferguson speaks on federal funding impacts and response to Trump’s executive orders