If President Obama is now confiding to Democratic donors that he may have to "revisit" health care in a second term if the Supreme Court throws out his first attempt, as Bloomberg News reported June 1, maybe this time we can get it right. More »
Nurses and healthcare justice advocates kick-off Medicare for All California Bus Tour in San Diego on June 19. What happens if the U.S. Supreme Court rules that “ObamaCare” is unconstitutional? If the Court upholds it, is this the best we can do? ObamaCare, RomneyCare, what about our care? Volunteer to get involved. More »
More than 6,000 nurses and activists gathered at Daley Plaza in Chicago Friday to rock out with musician Tom Morello and call for a tax on financial speculation — a Robin Hood tax. This small sales tax on Wall Street trades could raise up to $350 billion a year in the U.S., money that American communities desperately need. More »
Well, almost everybody – weeks after granting NNU a permit for a march to and rally at Daley Plaza, the city of Chicago now wants to change our march route and move the rally from Daley Plaza to Petrillo band shell at Butler Field. Either NNU agrees, or else. More »
Today marks the start of National Nurses’ Week. And like a lot of people across the nation who are touched and saved by the contributions of 3.1 million registered nurses, we want to say a simple THANK YOU. Click through for special downloads to help thank nurses everywhere! More »
What in the world? The registered nurses of National Nurses United cannot wait to welcome one of the world’s leading defenders of common people to their uncommon May 18th march and rally in Chicago. It’s time for Robin Hood to lend his legendary fame of days gone by to help with the nurses’ campaign to heal the modern-day financial traumas faced by real people at the hands of Wall Street. More »
Sutter is making demands for contract concessions and sweeping cuts in care despite making over $4 billion in profits since 2007, and handing its chief executive Pat Fry at 215 percent pay hike to over $4 million a year, in addition to salaries of over $1 million a year to some 20 other top executives. Join the Sutter RNs on the picket line, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at these locations: More »
“Thinking about Labor’s Future” is a series which will describe what the labor movement has achieved for America’s working families during the past two decades, and the problems (and opportunities) that will confront the unions of tomorrow. Each week, Harry will do an article on a separate issue. In addition to jobs and unemployment, we will include columns on war and nuclear threats, union organizing, leadership, political activity, healthcare, education, retirement income, technology, the workplace, taxes, global relations and working class culture. Stay tuned. More »
Here are some headlines you won't see after the government releases new figures on Social Security and Medicare later today: "Social Security Trust Fund Even Larger Than It Was Last Year." "Growing Wealth Inequity Will Lead to Social Security Imbalance Later This Century." "For-Profit Healthcare Poses Threat to Medicare, Federal Deficit, and Overall Economy in Coming Decades." Instead here's what we've already seen: "Aging workforce strains Social Security, Medicare." More »
California Nurses Association calls it a major encroachment on nurse practitioners’ practice and unsafe expansion of registered nurses’ scope of practice. More »
You have come to your leadership position of our country’s labor federation of unions with 13 million members the hard way. Starting by working in the coal mines, then becoming a lawyer, heading the United Mine Workers, then becoming the Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO before assuming your present position in 2009, who can pull rank on you in the formal labor movement? More »
With the approaching Supreme Court showdown on the President Obama’s 2010 health care law (the Affordable Care Act, modeled on Mitt Romney’s law in Massachusetts), the U.S. healthcare system remains a dysfunctional mess, as nurses bear witness to every day. By RoseAnn DeMoro, NNU Executive Director More »
My sleep was restless last night except for the snippets of scenes where I was being tended to by my cancer doctors from some time ago. In those dreams they cared for my body and comforted my fears as we worked together to overcome my illness. Of course time had changed things a bit and their offices were interwoven with the sweet things only dreams can infuse, but it sure was nice to revisit a time in my medical life when the system was even a little less broken than it is today. Don’t get me wrong, the bills were crushing then and some of the barriers daunting, but the slide to an even more difficult healthcare system for patients and our providers continues and deepens. More »
As a Registered Nurse for [32] years, I have seen the struggles of patients, particularly women, to access the care they need. Skyrocketing out of pocket costs, restrictions on network providers, and coverage limitations can keep my patients from receiving treatment in a timely fashion, ultimately compromising their health and costing all of us dearly. More »
Commentary from Rose Ann DeMoro, Executive Director, National Nurses United, AFL-CIO and California Nurses Association, published by Huffington Post. More »
The percentage of adults with no health insurance is the highest on record, 17.3 percent of adults as of the third quarter of 2011. Three years ago, in the third quarter of 2008, only 14.4 percent of adults lacked health insurance. More »
Robin Hood rides to France. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has followed through on his promise to put before parliament a financial transaction tax – calling it a “Robin Hood Tax” – of 0.1% on stock trades to commence in August, according to reports. Absent from the tax: bond sales. Sarkozy also proposed raising the basic consumption tax (VAT) by 1.6 percent, to 21.2 percent, and upping by 2 percentage points the taxes paid on financial profits. His proposed targets of new revenue: an increase in construction of low-income housing and creation of an “industry bank” to make cheaper loans to small and medium companies. More »
If there is one enduring message from the past year, it is that the days of silent suffering are over for the millions of Americans who continue to face a daily struggle to survive while Wall Street high rollers have yet to be called to account for ruining our economy. By: RoseAnn DeMoro, Executive Director National Nurses United More »
Ezra Klein, the bright, young, economic policy columnist for the "Washington Post" believes that Obama came out ahead last year in the "administration's bitter, high-stakes negotiations with the Republicans in Congress." More »
Just think how drastically your nursing practice would change for the worse if your patients’ caregivers or family members were allowed to give them medications in the hospital? That is just one of many recent changes proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid as conditions of participation. More »
