Nurses from Nevada and around the country continued rolling through Western Nevada today as part of the "Drive for Healthcare Voters" tour, visiting the small towns of Gardnerville and Fallon. The tour is being put on by the National Nurses Organizing Committee, which is America's largest RN union, and is complemented by a campaign including mail pieces, phonebanking, and advertising. Our goal is to make sure that voters have the information they need to be healthcare voters.
Day 2 of the tour was intense and emotional, as our healthcare outreach led to many conversations with voters about what is going on in their lives.
The National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) today kicked off a national road show and outreach campaign designed to inform voters about the healthcare proposals of both leading Presidential candidates. 5 swing states will be targeted before the election for this healthcare outreach.
As one nurse from St. Mary's Medical Center Reno put it, "Our patients are voters too, and we're here to get them the information they need."
The road show hits 11 different Nevada cities stops this week-everywhere from Reno to Elko to the Shoshone Reservation-with a striking wrapped bus featuring the nurses' report cards on Obama and McCain. Next week, the bus turns left and heads to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Manchester NH and Bangor ME (along with a visit to healthcare hero Eric Massa, running for Congress in New York.)
We haven't written much about the Presidential race here lately because California is largely out of reach - the FiveThirtyEight composite projects a 16-point win for Obama, and even the Stockton Record is endorsing Obama for President. Nevertheless, Vets for Freedom and Pete Wilson are wasting $2.2 million dollars on an ad campaign trumpeting the success of the surge. Way to gauge the public mood, guys. By the way, the California Nurses Association is firing back with a vicious ad about John McCain, and they have the sense to run it in swing states where it might matter.
Which brings us to tonight's VP debate. I wrote a little debate preview over at my site. My take - watch out for the hissy fit! Watch out for Drudge running with some manufactured slight and all the networks going into 24-hour "Biden disrespected Palin" mode and Lynne Cheney walking out and saying "This is a baaaad man!"
Anyway, I'll be trying to sort all of this out tonight with Brad Friedman of BradBlog, who's guest-hosting a special "VP Debate" edition of the Mike Malloy Show immediately following the Biden-Palin matchup. Also appearing:
This year's extended primary just might be great for healthcare reform as the Clinton campaign's failure may have killed off the terrible idea of insurance mandates. She ran on it, and lost--just like Arnold did in California last year.
If so, great news all around. Working people, already struggling, will not face the prospects of having their wages garnished to pay off Blue Cross' inflated premiums, overhead, and denials. Healthcare reformers can focus their work towards enacting genuine solutions, rather than fighting off this insurance marketing scheme masquerading as health care policy. And all of us can debate the real issues at hand here, like the new report finding the number of underinsured is spiking as our healthcare system continues its death-by-insurer spiral.
We'll take a look at this and updates from single-payer movement below!
In an extraordinary convention just concluding in Puerto Rico, here's what you didn't hear from Andy Stern's paid PR blitz. SEIU was under siege throughout by protest encampments of the popular Puerto Rican Teachers' Union, responding to SEIU's raid of the island's largest union-- during a strike to improve horrific educational conditions.
Inside the convention, to the detriment of the overall labor movement, Stern successfully squashed the internal dissent by SEIU's democracy activists, thereby further concentrating power in himself. The CEO model.
And in an extraordinary development, Stern announced that SEIU is basically doing away with labor reps in favor of outsourced call centers...which makes sense, in that if you sign no-strike promises to your employer, why would you need to mobilize your members?
There's more! SEIU is continuing its war against state and national RN unions by now picking up John McCain's frame of attacking "government-run healthcare" as their latest salvo against the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO). If anyone doubted SEIU's willingness to sell out genuine healthcare reform in a second, there it is.
RNs now celebrate Mary Seacole Day as part of National Nurses Week-and as the day we honor the social justice aspect of the work of nurses. Mary Seacole remains an important inspiration for the national nurses movement being built by CNA/NNOC (California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee), which focuses on improving patient care and safety in hospitals and on bringing this country the guaranteed, single-payer health care that our patients deserve.
I'll let folks draw their own conclusions and pick their own fights for the most part, but I thought this poll (link changed to pdf of Field Poll) was pretty interesting (favorable/unfavorable/net):
California Nurses Association/Nurses: 53/15/+35
California Hospital Assn./Hospitals: 33/30/+3
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger: 40/40/0
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez: 20/29/-8
Chamber of Commerce/Business Groups: 25/36/-11
News Media: 28/46/-18%
Republican State Legislative Leaders: 22/48/-26
Health Insurance Companies: 16/55/-39
I will throw a few rather obvious ones out along with one that may be less so. One- people don't care much for politicians. Two- they care even less for the media, which is interesting as the media keeps cutting back on news coverage. Three- they HATE insurance companies, which makes me wonder why anyone keeps trying to keep them in the equation.
Also, CNA's numbers are pretty darn impressive. Some of that is that people just like nurses I would imagine. But average Californian on the street, if they have an actual opinion of CNA proper, it's likely to be an opinion on single-payer. Which makes me think that, given the opportunity, people might be pretty supportive of single-payer.
Andy Stern's SEIU International has gone and proven why RNs want nothing to do with.
Even though they're providing the evidence for all the critiques of CNA/NNOC, today is a dark, dark day for the labor movement. Last night, in Dearborn Michigan, at an annual conference of union activists, sponsored by the non-partisal Labor Notes SEIU resorted to violence to get their messages across.
I will link to the release and pictures after the release.
I'm sure SEIU will come on here with some crazy spin justifying their violence, but please first answer these questions:
1. Will SEIU pay the bill of the hospitalized worker?
2. Will Andy Stern promise to renounce violence?
3. Will you aplogize to all involved?
4. Will we see the same tactics in other venues?
A major reason for the increasing controversy surrounding SEIU International has been their lack of commitment to genuine healthcare reform-and in fact their active attempts to undermine and sink patient-centered, single-payer reforms.
Progressive elements in the labor movement (and their own union) have long been aware of this problem, as have healthcare and single-payer activists around the country.
This story is now entering the wider public discussion as SEIU International embarks on new partnerships with corporate America and, all too often, Republican power brokers. We'll take a look, below, at their latest partnership, this one with the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Realtors, to support a bill that hurts patients in the name of increasing insurance corporation profits-and, perhaps, winning employer sanction for SEIU organizing.
...for more background, please visit the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee's new site, ServingEmployersInsteadofUs.
Charlie Brown reported $225,000 in the first quarter of 2008, with over a million dollars raised throughout the campaign. He's had 12,000 donors thus far.
Russ Warner took in $100,000 in the first quarter and has $220,000 cash on hand.
But I was more interested in this story, which shows the CNA making an electoral play in two swing districts to help the Democrats reach a 2/3 majority.
This year the nurses union also is backing two Democrats vying for open seats which are being vacated by Republicans:
Up north, longtime San Ramon Valley School Board trustee Joan Buchanan seeks the East Bay's open 15th Assembly District being vacated by termed-out Assemblyman Guy Houston. In January she reported a $166,000 war chest and most likely will face off against San Ramon Mayor Abram Wilson.
Down south, former Santa Barbara Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson wants to fill Ventura County's open 19th District state Senate seat being surrendered by termed-out Tom McClintock, who's heading north to run for an open congressional seat near Sacramento. Ex-Assemblyman Tony Strickland is the GOP's anointed successor.
"We only need two more Democrats in the senate and six more in the assembly to have a two-thirds Democratic majority," said CNA legislative director Donna Gerber, who spent six years as a Contra Costa County supervisor.
"When there are budget cuts those budget cuts pretty much happen in health care and education. So for sure we are supporting Hannah-Beth Jackson and Joan Buchanan. Those are two that we're putting a lot of our energy into."
If labor jumps in explicitly in these legislative races to aid in the drive for 2/3 then we'll have a distinct financial advantage. Remember that the CA Republican Party is essentially broke. This is the best news I've heard all week and I know the rest of labor will follow suit.
4,000 brave women and men, RNs from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, are spending this week on the picket lines outside of Sutter Health Hospitals throughout Northern California, on a 10-day strike over patient care issues. Let me tell you about it, and introduce you to some of the RNs, because this is an important strike for a re-energized American labor movement and a key moment for the nation's battle for quality healthcare.
The CNA has been in the headlines for other reasons lately, but I don't think anyone can discount the incredible activism they have engaged in on behalf of patients being denied life-saving medical treatment. Word now comes of another victory against the "murder by spreadsheet" insurance industry who felt like saving a kid's life wasn't good for business.
In the face of a national campaign on behalf of Nick Colombo, insurance giant PacifiCare has reversed its decisions and agreed to critically needed cancer treatments for the 17-year-old from Placentia, Calif. The decision came after the company was overwhelmed by calls organized by Nick's friends and family, along with RNs from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, and netroots activists.
Over 100 of Nick's classmates, friends of the family with their young children, and nurses protested in front of the insurance company headquarters this morning to demand that the approval be put in writing, which a PacifiCare representative, surrounded by T.V. cameras, and promised to do.
"I am extremely happy about PacifiCare's reversal, said Ricky Colombo, Nick's 19-year old brother. "The goal was to get treatment for Nick, and CNA/NNOC and other allies helped us with that. We decided to go through with the rally in order to get their decision on the record and make sure they back up their words-and also because there are thousands of others in similar situations who can't get the care they need. We feel blessed to have this community supporting our family."
In the fight for universal health care, all sides of the debate on the left are going to be instrumental. The CNA's tenacity and effectiveness in organizing "patient revolts" like this is very valuable, particularly to show the inequities in the current broken health care system. Activists shut down PacifiCare's phone system on multiple occasions before they capitulated.
To beat the powerful interests that want to maintain the status quo you're going to need every activist and every strategy you can find. And we're going to win this fight, one patient at a time.
This week in Ohio there was a major victory for democratic, member-led, social justice unionism. A hospital chain hand-picked a union, SEIU, which is known for being friendly to employers, and attempted to impose this company union on employees without a democratic process or any show of support among workers.
Local nurses, together with the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, started an effort to block this anti-democratic, top-down deal and were successful--in a major victory for RNs, patients, and healthcare reform.
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee was probably the first group to oppose the bill, and we did so based on the belief that handing more customers, revenue, and medical influence to insurance corporations would hurt our patients; this was a bad proposal strictly on the terms of public health. Moreover, we warned early on that the financial projections would never "pencil out"--it's simply not possible to protect out-sized profits for insurance corporations and to solve the healthcare crisis. They're mutually exclusive goals.
I want to share with you the thoughts of Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the CNA/NNOC, on the next steps for healthcare.
Should government mandate the purchase of for-profit insurance products, backed up by threats to garnish wages or place a lien on homes? Or should we move to a guaranteed healthcare system modeled on the single-payer financing that is working in Taiwan, Canada, and most of Europe?
This very interesting debate is happening simultaneously at the national and state levels-because mandated insurance is the top priority of the insurance industry, and they're pushing it everywhere they can.
Conversations with press like this happen every day, every hour in the Capitol; it's why the building exists.
But I guess most conversations aren't on the subject of the insurance industry's number one priority-which is to pass an "individual mandate" law. And most conversations don't happen as a gigantic fake healthcare reform bill seems to be careening to an ugly defeat.
Which is why most conversations don't end with patients being cited for a misdemeanor.
The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee put out a simple call for a petition last week, demanding access for our patients to CheneyCare, the guaranteed, non-profit, quality healthcare available to Dick Cheney. (Sign up if you haven't already.)
Just want to let you know about our new radio ad campaign against the fake healthcare reform bill. It will be running statewide throughout January, as the Senate considers whether to weigh in on the side of patients or the big insurance corps.
It's based on the very interesting parallels between the national debate and the California debate for healthcare. Like the proposals of some politicians nationally, both Republican and Democratic, the Schwarzenegger-Nunez deal has at its heart an individual mandate.
The ad quotes Sen. Obama noting "some folks who said that it's not possible to provide universal health care coverage unless there's a mandate._ Their essential argument is the only way to get everybody covered is if the government forces you to buy health insurance. If you don't buy it, then you'll be penalized in some way....The reason people don't have health insurance is because they can't afford it."
Pre-existing condition? No problem. Guaranteed healthcare? Of course. Heartless insurance bureaucrats meddling in medical decisions? No way. A single standard of quality care? Nothing less will do.
(Nataline Sarkysian's brother has invited anyone who would like to attend to Nataline's funeral tomorrow. - promoted by shayera)
There will also be a funeral for her friends and family, but Bedig Sarkysian, Nataline's brother, has asked the California Nurses Association to help invite all of her friends and supporters to this public service in memory of Nataline:
