Registered nurse from across the U.S. will be joining others as they march through the streets of Washington DC, demanding more funding for HIV/AIDS treatment. One critical way to raise hundreds of billions of dollars every year to fight AIDS, as well as address other basic needs, is with a small tax on Wall Street financial speculation – the Robin Hood Tax. More »
RNs with California Nurses Association/National Nurses United who attended the San Francisco Supervisors meeting Tuesday night are glad city officials are taking a closer look at the Sutter/California Pacific Medical Center’s controversial building project in the city. More »
Why would a company pay an estimated $10 million for access to a patient population? Not the brick and mortar of facility building, nor its machines, computers or other hardware? The answer: the billing opportunity. This is the business model of DaVita, Inc., a Colorado-based for-profit healthcare company that owns and operates more than 1,800 clinics across the U.S.—and some in foreign countries, too. More »
Today in West Covina, the California Nurses Association summer 2012 Medicare for all bus tour will come to a close. After visiting 18 other California cities since June 19, the nurses will wrap up this run with a bang and with clarity. Three of the subjects of Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary film SiCKO will be on hand to help lead others in sharing their stories of struggle and frustration with the broken healthcare system. More »
After spending the past month on the California Nurses Association Medicare for all bus tour in California, I am more confident than ever about the prospects of winning guaranteed healthcare for all under an improved Medicare model. Cradle to grave. For life. In California. Everywhere. By Donna Smith More »
With the Supreme Court decision upholding the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it’s a good time to look at what the law does (and doesn’t do): More »
Take a look at the key parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court on June 28, 2012, and where the law falls short. More »
Patients find it very difficult to tell in our dysfunctional healthcare system in the U.S. whether we are being cared for as people or being worked over for profit potential. It’s frustrating and painful to hear ourselves referred to as consumers or customers rather than patients. Rest assured that when someone labels us as things rather than human beings, it’s more than a difference in terminology; it’s a big, bold statement on exactly where and how we fit. More »
Notes from the road in California: I’ve been on the National Nurses United Medicare for All for life bus tour since mid-June, with one break to travel to Philadelphia for the SiCKO 5th reunion. So first let me admit I have a bit of “bus brain” going on. It’s a condition that goes along with being on an advocacy tour, without the restorative comforts of home. Today we head for Santa Cruz. Join us! More »
Please take a moment to watch this video, see the devastation MNA RNs are suffering in the Northland after the June 20 floods and make an online contribution through MNA to help them! More »
It’s a big day. And the corporate model for healthcare in America just triumphed over our humanity. The corporate Supreme Court honored all of its masters mightily in upholding the position that patients are consumers, taxes are bad, and full steam ahead on a healthcare system that includes a bailed-out private health insurance market. Ouch. More »
It hurts. The stories hurt. The aching, pounding, insistent sounds of Californians telling the nurses where it hurts. This is what the Medicare for all for life bus tour is all about in California. More »
My cancer won’t wait and doesn’t care about what nine robed judges in Washington, DC, say about healthcare. Cancer doesn’t care. Obamacare. Romneycare. No matter. Cancer doesn’t care. But the nurses do. More »
Now is not the time for more bailouts to the insurance industry, lowering patient care standards, or abandoning those patients and families who continue to face un-payable medical bills, insurance denials, or who remain uninsured or under insured. Let’s win the reform that can guarantee a single standard of quality care for all: Improved and expanded Medicare. Get Involved! More »
San Diego – Take heart, America. After an historic day of action in the worldwide launch of the Robin Hood Tax campaign, the nurses of National Nurses United kicked off the California statewide bus tour for Medicare For All to a standing room only crowd in San Diego. More »
A modest tax on speculative financial transactions would be some restitution for the human costs of this bank-made crisis. More »
The day kicked off with some mischievous merry folk creeping around New York long before the sun was up to mask some of the cities best known statues. By the time sun was up everyone from Ghandi to Andy Warhol was wearing the icon green mask and hat. More »
The proposed budget language to suspend the nurse-to-patient ratios for every patient on every unit in the acute care hospitals for the entire period that nurses are away from their patient assignment for meal and rest breaks undermines patient safety in every hospital setting. More »
Registered nurses from nearly a dozen hospitals in California walked out on the job, grabbed picket signs and held a one-day strike Wednesday to protest massive cuts to patient care and RN livelihood. Many marched outside Sutter Health hospitals in the Bay Area where the corporation is proposing some 100 widespread reductions in patient services and RN contract standards. More »
With great fanfare this week, the Washington Post reports that United Healthcare plans to keep key consumer provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act no matter what the Supreme Court rules about the individual insurance purchase mandate. It sounds so, well, friendly and reasonable, doesn’t it? But read it again and then I want to tell you what that really says to America’s patients and to United Healthcare’s policyholders. More »
