Instead, we continue to fight for what RNs really want: R-E-S-P-E-C-T. 

Respect is a healthcare system where nurses can care for patients to their best and highest potential.

Respect is safe staffing ratio laws and a healthcare system based on need and not the size of a person’s wallet.

Respect is quality healthcare and retirement for nurses and their families.

Respect is enacting a Robin Hood tax on Wall Street to help fund all this and more to provide a just economy for all Americans.

How can you help? What is the best way to thank a nurse in your life? We have a few ideas.

You could thank a nurse by joining thousands of us on the streets of Chicago on May 18th as we march to call for a tax on Wall Street to fund Main Street. If you can’t make it to Chicago, you could thank nurses by watching a webcast of the event and sending an encouraging note.

You could get involved in the struggle to expand Medicare to everyone. You can take action now by sharing a story of how guaranteed healthcare could have helped improve the health of you or a loved one. Tell your story here.

Go to the Friend a Nurse Facebook page and send “Thank you” gifts to nurses. You could give a nurse a small, virtual token of your appreciation. Here is a link to Gift a Nurse – a free Facebook app

Download the original tribute song to nurses written by singer songwriter, and NNU’s online communications specialist, Colette Washington.

Get the original nurse tribute song “Angel at My Side” FREE, written by singer/songwriter, and NNU communications specialist, Colette Washington.

SONG CHORUS:
I just want to thank you for fighting for my life
I just want to thank you for standing up for human rights
I just want to thank you for all the tears you've dried
Most of all I want to thank you for being the angel at my side

So this week, forget the donuts and, instead, give registered nurses the real support they want and need— a real collective voice in the fight for safer patient care.

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.

It won’t be Sherwood Forest where Robin Hood and the nurses will be marching and rallying but through the streets of downtown Chicago, from the Sheraton Downtown at 11 a.m., to Daley Plaza a little after noon.  With a sense of festive political messaging but also with the courageous clarity nurses bring to their advocacy for doing what is best for their patients, their communities and nation, and the world, the eyes of the world will turn to Chicago to learn what a Robin Hood Tax is and why such a tax is the right way to heal so many of the fiscal problems we face.

Grammy-award winning musician Tom Morello will be there making sure the nurses have all the music needed to rock the Plaza and infuse the day with sound and passion.

A Robin Hood Tax is a small tax levied on financial transactions – stocks, bonds, derivatives and other speculative financial activity – that raises revenue from Wall Street for the needs of Main Street.  Just a small tax – a half-a-cent on a dollar of sales of those Wall Street transactions – could raise more than $350 billion per year to fund those things now being targeted for cuts or even elimination.  Access to good jobs at a living wage, guaranteed healthcare for all, a quality public education, a clean and safe environment, retirement with dignity, adequate housing and food – all of these things that are the marks of a civilized society belong not on the chopping block labeled as austerity measures but held up for protections to be available for generations to come.

Nurses often see their patients at their weakest, most vulnerable moments when they provide honest assessments and needed care without hesitation and for the good of the patient.  Now, as registered nurses see so many of society’s ills, and they cannot escape the realities in their own lives and communities, they offer a simple assessment and a clear path for healing.  A Robin Hood Tax is the right way forward, and an idea whose time has come all over the world.

It’s simple.  Heal America:  Tax Wall Street.  In Chicago, Robin Hood will join the nurses’ call.  Will you?

Northern California RNs will strike eight Sutter corporation hospitals Tuesday, May 1 to once again protest the wealthy corporation’s outrageous demands for more than 100 reductions in patient care protections and RN standards.

The nurses will also protest ongoing cuts in patient services – the latest being the expected announcement by Sutter next week that it intends to close the San Leandro hospital, abandoning the thousands of patients who depend on that hospital every year for acute care.

Sutter is making these 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 the following facilities:

The strike is occurring at the following facilities:

• Alta Bates Main Campus, 2450 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley  
• Alta Bates Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way, Berkeley (psychiatric care facility)
• Alta Bates Summit Campus, 350 Hawthorne Avenue, Oakland
• Eden Medical Center, 20103 Lake Chabot Rd, Castro Valley
• San Leandro Hospital, 13855 E. 14th St., San Leandro
• Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, 1501 Trousdale Drive, Burlingame
• Mills Health Center, 100 S. San Mateo Drive, San Mateo
• Sutter Lakeside Hospital, 5176 Hill Road East, Lakeport
• Novato Community Hospital, 180 Rowland Way, Novato
• Sutter Solano Medical Center, 300 Hospital Drive, Vallejo  
• Sutter Delta Medical Center, 3901 Lone Tree Way, Antioch

Rallies are planned at the following locations:

• Alta Bates, Ashby hospital, Berkeley – 11 a.m.  
• Sutter Solano, Vallejo – 11 a.m.
• Sutter Delta, Antioch – 12 noon
• Eden Medical – 12 noon
• Alta Bates, Summit hospital – 1 p.m.
• Peninsula – 2 p.m.
• Sutter Lakeside- 3 p.m.
• San Leandro – 3 p.m., followed by Town Hall meeting, San Leandro Senior Community Center, 13909 E. 14th Street

Among the many concession demands at various Sutter hospitals:

• Eliminating paid sick leave, effectively forcing nurses to work when ill, exposing already frail and vulnerable patients to further infection.
• Forcing RNs to work in hospital areas for which they do not have appropriate clinical expertise, again a safety risk for patients.
• Huge increases in nurses’ out-of-pocket costs for health coverage for themselves and family members.
• Limits on the ability of charge nurses, who make clinical assignments for nurses, to address staffing shortages, subjecting patients to the danger of unsafe staffing.
• Forcing RNs to work overtime, exposing patients to care from fatigued nurses who are more prone to making medical errors.
• Eliminating retiree health plans.
• Eliminating all health coverage for nurses who work less than 30 hours per week.
• Reduced pregnancy and family medical leave, undermining RN families.

Concurrently, Sutter continues to make substantial cuts in patient services throughout the region, especially in areas it considers inadequately profitable, such as mental health, cancer screening, and services for women, children, and seniors.

“Sutter’s tone at the bargaining table has been dismissive and disrespectful of nurses' concerns,” said Mills-Peninsula RN Genel Morgan. “They have misjudged our resolve to stand up and safeguard our nursing standards, and to ensure our patients don’t suffer from Sutter wanting to cut these standards. Sutter has used half truths and lies to justify their objectives, but we see right through them, much as the community sees through them whenever Sutter cuts services. “

“Sutter has passed the stage of ‘too big to fail’ going to ‘too big to care’,” said CNA/NNU co-president Zenei Cortez, RN. “They have shown they are far more interested in amassing wealth than caring about community health or the nurses who provide care for the patients who are the base of Sutter’s huge profits. Sutter RNs will never accept a reduced voice to speak out for patients, or an erosion in their own standards.”

Sutter’s additional abandonment of communities and patients (partial list):

• End breast cancer screening for women with disabilities and most bone marrow transplant services for cancer patients at Alta Bates Summit in Oakland and Berkeley.
• Stop providing psychiatric services under contract with Sacramento County for more than 225 Sacramento children.
• Close specialized pediatric care, acute rehabilitation, dialysis, and skilled nursing care services at Mills and Peninsula hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo.
• Close home health services and limit acute-care hospital stays in Lakeport.
• Close acute rehabilitation services, skilled nursing care, and psychiatric services, and substantially downgrade nursery care for sick children at Eden Hospital in Castro Valley.
• Sharply cut psychiatric care at Herrick Hospital in Berkeley.
• Close a birthing center at Sutter Auburn Faith, forcing new mothers and families to travel up to 100 miles for obstetrics care, while giving a $1 million gift to the Sacramento Kings.
• Close pediatric, psychiatric, lactation, and transitional care services in Santa Rosa.

The First in a Series of articles
By Harry Kelber

Introductory Remarks:
This series 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, we 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—not necessarily in that order. At the same time, we will offer suggestions (and we welcome yours) about the issues that the next generations of unions will face, with the understanding that some ideas may be difficult to accomplish.

----------

In his last “State of the Union” address, President Barack Obama claimed that, as a result of his job-creating policies,  “ in the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs.”
Obama, early on, pushed through a $787 billion stimulus package through Congress to spur job growth—and that added another two-to-three million jobs, it is said.

And then there was the bailout of the auto industry that saved or added  a million new jobs for auto workers. But the bailout of the nation’s top banks yielded less than nothing in providing jobs for the unemployed.

Let us accept Obama’s claims for job-creation, even if some of the figures are questionable. The hard fact is that, as of April 6, 2012, there are 9.7 million people still unemployed, and millions more who can’t find a full-time job or who are so discouraged they have stopped looking for one..

With the improvement in a still fragile economy, the White House has largely given up its priority on creating jobs,  assuming that, as the economy grows, enough jobs will  be found to  silence the clamor about  jobs as an issue.  It will be up to business, not the government, to supply the necessary jobs.  At the 2012 presidential elections, there may still be talk  about  creating jobs , but no one expects any positive action.

What about the AFL-CIO’s efforts?  Its president, Richard Trumka, has
designed a six-point program for creating a healthy, productive economy  that could create a mass of decent jobs, but neither Congress nor the the White House is listening.  Worse still, AFL-CIO leaders avoid using non-violent direct action in support of their jobs program.

AFL-CIO campaigns “to Make Wall Street Pay” ended in failure, because there was no aggressive action to compel  the big banks  to compensate the victims of their reckless investments that helped to bring on the economic crisis.

What Can Unions of the Future Do about Jobs?
They can wage a top priority campaign for massive work projects, similar to those of the New Deal of the 1930s,  with useful jobs that will  be used to enrich the nation. We need better transportation, and  repair of the nation’s crumbling roads and bridges, as well as an update of our water, electric and sewage systems.

 We will need masses of people to improve our schools, hospitals, post offices, airports, libraries and public buildings.  We should clear the slums of many of run-down cities. And fortunately, we have a reservoir of unemployed people and newcomers to the workforce who can be put to work on these projects.

Our unions should be particularly concerned about the 5.3 million people who have not had a paycheck for 27 weeks or more. The Obama administration and the AF L-CIO leadership have woefully underestimated,  not only the financial, but psychological pressures this huge number of individuals are enduring..  it is hard for us, who are well-fed, well-housed and well-cared for,  to understand the rage,  bitterness and humiliation the jobless  must feel every day of their lives, especially in front of their children.

Unions of the future must consider creating a real union of the unemployed, whose survival demands would be seriously  considered by Congress and the White House.

It is not science fiction to imagine that one or more demagogues may some day come  forward to organize the unemployed to take violent, mindless actions that will threaten our institutions and cause incalculable damage. A proper attitude to the unemployed can prevent such a nightmarish outcome.

What else might happen if our unions ignore the unemployed? We will increase homelessness, poverty and crime, and the creation of an underclass that can disfigure   America’s stature on the world stage.

The unions of tomorrow won’t be able to avoid the problem of jobs for the unemployed. They do have an opportunity to develop new options that the old AFL-CIO never dared to pursue.

The second in our series on “Thinking about Labor’s Future” will be posted here on Tuesday,  May 1, 2012,  and can be viewed at our two web sites: http://www.laboreducator.org and http://www.laborsvoiceforchange.org.

===

Social Security and Medicare: Behind the Numbers and the Spin

By Richard (RJ) Eskow
Campaign for America's Future
April 23, 2012

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"

"Public Consensus Grows For Taxing Wealthy to Restore Long-Term Entitlement Imbalance"

Instead here's what we've already seen:

"Aging workforce strains Social Security, Medicare"

That headline's completely wrong, and yet it's been repeated in dozens of different news outlets (sometimes with minor variations) as they run an improved, but still misleading, news story on Social Security and Medicare from Stephen Ohlemacher at the Associated Press.

Perhaps Trudy Lieberman's Columbia Journalism Review analysis of misleading Social Security reporting had some impact.

Whatever the reason, it's good to see that Ohlemacher's article acknowledges the role that our ongoing economic difficulties have had in slowing revenues for these programs, and that he quotes critics of the Social Security-cutting consensus (although with far less prominence than he does a little-known figure repeating right-wing talking points.)

Even the Washington Post, which is the nation's worst journalistic offender on these subjects, shifted the emphasis with their headline this time. Today they're running the AP article with the header "Social Security, Medicare strained by slow economic recovery, aging workforce."

That headline is 50 percent right - which is a 50 percent improvement.

Ohlemacher's article was occasioned by the latest report from the Trustees of the fund that handles Social Security and Medicare, which will be released today. He writes that "both programs (Social Security and Medicare) are on a path to become insolvent in the coming decades, unless Congress acts, according to the trustees."

Unfortunately the piece provides no context for the use of the term "insolvent," which most people associate with bankruptcy or running out of funds. As Sarah Kliff explains, nobody is suggesting that either of these programs will ever run out of funds. And when programs have ongoing sources of income, the temporary absence of a surplus isn't the same as "insolvency" as that term is commonly understood.

In fact the report will clearly state that Social Security's Trust Fund has grown to $2.7 trillion dollars, and that Social Security will be able to pay all its benefits in full for a quarter of a century.
After that, if no changes are made, it will be able to pay 75 percent of scheduled benefits without changes.

Nor is the "aging workforce" the cause for any of today's concerns, despite the millions of dollars in advocacy money meant to make us believe that it is.
We've known about the baby boom ever since it ended in the 1960's, and it was fully addressed in past adjustments to the program. That's why the program was considered perfectly solvent for the foreseeable future after the Greenspan Commission raised the retirement age and made its other adjustments in the 1980s.

The demographics of that "aging workforce" were well known to actuaries by then, since all of those now- aging boomers were already alive and participating in the workforce. So how could an "aging workforce" have caused unexpected shortfalls in Social Security?

The answer, which you won't find in the AP article, is
this: As economists like L. Josh Bivens have shown, there's been a sharp increase in income inequity in the last couple of decades. The payroll tax which finances Social Security was reconfigured to capture 90 percent of the nation's income, but because the richest among us are capturing more of our nation's wealth that figures is now closer to 83 percent.

If that hadn't happened there would be no problem with Social Security at all. Understanding the nature of the problem helps us come up with a cure. If wealth inequity is the cause, shouldn't the solution also center on inequity?

Medicare, unlike Social Security, does have very serious long-term financial problems. Why? Because we're the only developed nation that insists in delivering its health care through a system of for- profit hospitals and other medical providers. The for- profit medical/industrial complex has exploded in size over the last few decades, and it's driving our runaway health care costs. The for-profit insurance system which serves most insured Americans under 65 has no incentive to resist for-profit medical care, and arguably even benefits from runaway costs.

The impact of for-profit care on Medicare's future can be inferred from this quote by economist David Blitzer:
""The trends in Medicare are more modest than the cost increases we have seen in the private commercial sector." That's because Medicare, as a government program, is far more cost-efficient than the private health insurance system. (That difference makes a mockery of Republican proposals to end Medicare and replace it with a system of vouchers for private
insurance.)

The AP article prominently features an alarmist quote from someone named Mary Johnson, who is described as a policy analyst for the "Senior Citizens League." "I don't know how to make it clear to the public," says Ms. Johnson, "but in my mind the sirens are going off."

The Senior Citizens' League does not present Ms. Johnson's professional qualifications on its website.

And who is the Senior Citizens League? The only member of the organization with a national reputation is its apparent founder, former Republican Congressman David Funderburk. I hadn't heard of it before, but some quick Googling led to complaints like this one ("Notch octogenarians should beware of Social Security scam") and this one ("Got a letter requesting money from them. The letter is full of propaganda about Mexican immigrants taking away all social security benefits??!")

The League also fought against health reform which claims that it would create a "massive" Federal database that would make your medical records available to "millions of people" with "a complete lack of privacy and confidentiality" and would hit doctors and hospitals with "stiff penalties." That even earned a slap from PolitiFact, which has been known to defend conventionally-accepted misstatements on the subject of entitlements. According to its website the League's been on the right side of at least one issue, that of cost-of-living adjustments, but it's surprising to see alarmist words from such a little-known group given such prominence in a piece of this kind.

The AP article also quotes people with more obvious credentials, including economist Blitzer and Eric Kingson, a professor of social work at Syracuse University who co-chairs the Strengthen Social Security Campaign. (Conflict alert: I'm affiliated with that
organization.) But these more qualified individuals aren't given the prominent display of the less-well- known Ms. Johnson.

The simplest, and by far the most popular, solution to Social Security's future revenue gap is to lift the payroll tax cap. Such a move would end any future doubts about its ability to pay benefits, would be politically popular, and would harmonize with the wealth inequity that is the source of that future shortfall.

Yet this solution goes unmentioned until the end of the article, and then only as the position taken by
"advocates": "Kingson and other advocates say Social Security could be shored up by simply increasing the amount of wages subject to Social Security taxes -- an idea that most Republicans in Congress flatly oppose."

That makes it sound as if this were a matter of opinion, rather than one of fact, but it's not. Experts ranging from Ronald Reagan's Chief Actuary to economists with expertise in this area have confirmed that this would fully solve Social Security's long-term shortfall.

By contrast, consider the article's opening sentence:
"An aging population and an economy that has been slow to rebound are straining the long-term finances of Social Security and Medicare." That sentence should have read "Growing wealth inequities and an economy slow to rebound ..." Near the end another sentence could have something like "The Senior Citizens League and other advocates say an aging workforce has contributed to the problem ..."

That would have been much more accurate. Unfortunately the AP reverses opinion and fact, presenting one as the other and vice versa. That will serve to reinforce widely-held (and, for the right, politically
convenient) misconceptions about the program.
Nevertheless, although it repeats far too many misconceptions and fails to provide the proper context, this article is an improvement from past misreporting on Social Security and Medicare.

We have a long way to go before we can be sure that our news outle ats are giving people the facts and the context they need to understand what's happening to Medicare and a Social Security - and what it means for them.

(NOTE: The above originally said that the AP article didn't mention lifting the payroll tax cap at all. It did, but presented its effects as if they were merely a matter of opinion. We have rewritten that section of this piece accordingly.)

===

2012 Social Security Trustees Report Overview

Strengthen Social Security Campaign
April 23, 20012

Today, the Social Security Trustees released their annual report on the financial status of Social Security. The report, issued every year, projects Social Security's income and outgo for the next 75 years, and once again this year shows that Social Security has a large and growing surplus.

Unfortunately, some tend to cite parts of the report selectively, to make the case that Social Security is in crisis and unaffordable. When the report is read in its entirety, the facts speak otherwise. Below and attached are some key points about the Trustees Report, which we hope will be helpful to you as you review it.

The full Trustees Report can be found here.

###

Portside aims to provide material of interest to people that will help them to interpret the world and to change it.

AB 2348 proposes to expand the registered nurse (RN) scope of practice for dispensing medication in community, free and primary health clinics. This bill will allow registered nurses after performing an assessment to hand out “hormonal contraceptives” to women which include:

• Oral contraceptives often referred to as “the pill”
• Emergency contraceptives often referred to as “the morning after pill”
• Contraceptive vaginal rings and contraceptive patches
• Any other means of contraception that may be developed in the future that would fall under the category of “hormonal” contraception

Currently, nurse practitioners and certified nurse midwives under standardized procedures are allowed to furnish hormonal contraceptives to patients after performing an assessment.
 
CNA supports the expansion of primary health services for women with a single standard of high quality care for everyone. However, this bill encroaches on the practice of nurse practitioners in an effort by employers to use lower paid registered nurses to provide these family planning services.  
 
HOW YOU CAN HELP:
 
Contact Members of the Assembly Business, Profession & Consumer Protections Committee before Tuesday, April 24th and ask them to oppose AB 2348 because all women deserve quality family planning services.
 
Members of Assembly Business, Professions and Consumer Protection Committee:
 
Chair, Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi (Hayward): p (916) 319-2018
Email  Assemblymember.hayashi@assembly.ca.gov
 
Vice Chair, Assemblyman Bill Berryhill (Stockton): p (916) 319-2026
Email  Assemblymember.bill.berryhill@assembly.ca.gov
 
Assemblyman Michael Allen (Santa Rosa): p (916) 319-2007
Email  Assemblymember.allen@asm.ca.gov
 
Assemblywoman Betsy Butler (Torrance): p (916) 319-2053
Email  Assemblymember.butler@asm.ca.gov
 
Assemblyman Mike Eng (Monterey Park): p (916) 319-2049
Email Assemblymember.eng@assembly.ca.gov
 
Assemblymember Curt Hagman (Chino Hills): p (916) 319-2060
Email Assemblymember.hagman@assembly.ca.gov
 
Assemblyman Jerry Hill (South San Francisco): p (916) 319-2019
Email Assemblymember.hill@assembly.ca.gov
 
Assemblywoman Fiona Ma (San Francisco): p (916) 319-2012
Email Assemblymember.ma@assembly.ca.gov
 
Assemblyman Cameron Smyth (Santa Clarita): p (916) 319-2038
Email Assemblymember.smyth@assembly.ca.gov

Open Letter to Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO
Dear Mr. Trumka,

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?

Yet, the AFL-CIO’s public leadership in three major areas has been far less effective than one would expect. I am referring to your less than assertive response to President Obama: 1) turning his back on raising the federal minimum wage; 2) failing to advance his card check promise to you in 2008; and 3) dropping the ball on backing long-overdue safety and health responsibilities of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

I say this with the awareness of your group’s public stands in favor of these three crucial matters to working families. But as you well know, there is a very marked difference between being on-the-record, as the AFL-CIO is, and being on-the-daily ramparts pushing these issues, as your organization is not.

Even just making a statement, however, took a back seat in your March 13, 2012 endorsement of Barack Obama for a second term as president. In what ways has Mr. Obama “moved aggressively,” as you declared, “to protect workers rights, pay, health and safety on the job?”

He has neither championed nor pressed Congress, when the Democrats were in control in 2009-2010, to give you card check which you have long-said was needed to reverse the serious decline and expand the ranks of organized labor by millions of workers (you told me this in 2004).

Second, Mr. Obama appointed an excellent head of OSHA and then betrayed OSHA – an agency that has estimated 58,000 workplace-related American deaths a year from disease and trauma! That is over 1000 people a week, every week, on the average.

Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor and the head of OSHA, cannot get White House approval for issuing long-overdue standards or strengthening weak and outdated standards such as the woefully inadequate silica rule, to save American lives not threatened by terrorists, but by corporate negligence or worse. Why have you not exposed this reality in public? Has Mr. Obama, whom you have socialized with at White House viewings of the Super Bowl, ever invited you to come across Lafayette Square to discuss this serious ongoing, preventable tragedy?

Had he taken worker concerns seriously, he might have asked you why the AFL-CIO for many years, has retained at its large national headquarters so few full-time advocates on occupational health and safety? And you in turn might have asked him why his politicos are blocking Dr. Michaels and why he is content in having only $550 million for OSHA’s annual budget while the U.S. spent $675 million in 2011 paying corporate contractors to guard the overbuilt U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. Are these the Obama “values” you extolled in your endorsement statement?

More dismaying is your touting Mr. Obama for aggressively protecting workers’ pay. By pushing for more NAFTA type “pull-down” trade agreements through Congress, and not moving to revise NAFTA as he promised in his 2008 presidential campaigns, he is undermining both workers’ pay and jobs. By totally abandoning his pledge made to over 30 million workers in 2008 that he would press for a $9.50/hour federal minimum wage by 2011, he left them defenseless with more debt and fewer necessities of life.

The AFL-CIO wants at the least to catch up to 1968 with an inflation-adjusted $10/hour minimum wage law. Where is the visible muscular campaign for such legislation? Keeping up with inflation for the federal minimum wage is historically supported by 70 percent of the people. That includes many Republicans and even Rick Santorum and, until his latest flip-flop, Mitt Romney. A $10 minimum wage, after years of windfall price increases and executive compensation windfalls at labor’s expense, would annually pump tens of billions of dollars into greater consumer demand by low-income families in this recessionary economy.

What is the AFL-CIO waiting for? Hundreds of non-profit organizations will follow your lead. Talk is not enough. Resources and muscular lobbying are required along with far more relevant and tough public advertisements than your members are seeing and paying for on TV these days. Enough, already, of the general feel-good mood spots on TV.

As someone who in earlier days had been a dig-in-your-heels labor negotiator in fights with management, what did you receive for millions of American workers in your early, blanket endorsement of Mr. Obama? No wonder he can get away with giving the trade union movement and unorganized workers the back of his hand. You have unnecessarily allowed him to believe that you have nowhere to go. This is another way of saying that the Republicans, by being worse than the bad Democrats, are holding the American labor movement hostage to the corporatist Democratic Party.

The AFL-CIO is in a deep, defensive rut when in these tough times it should be in an aroused, innovative state of high alert and aggressive action. Workers in the 1930s’ Depression were in worse shape than workers today, yet organized labor was more militant.

People inside and outside the AFL-CIO know the problems. They are: complacent bureaucratic rigidity, fractious relations between member unions over how supine they need to be to Obama and the Democrats (with their costly wars), the lack of union democracy and competitive elections both within member unions and at the AFL-CIO plus, except for a few unions like the California Nurses Association, a distinct lack of sustained fervor and money for organizing drives.

You know all this only too well. Yet, as a 14th Century Chinese philosopher once said, “to know and not to do is not to know.” Unless you shake the AFL-CIO up and reorder its priorities against the corporate state, expect another four years of an Obamabush Administration.

Sincerely,
Ralph Nader

Source article

By Rose Ann DeMoro
NNU Executive Director
 
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.

In late March, the Court will devote six hours over three days to oral arguments on the legal challenges to the law – the most time the Court has given a case in 56 years – accompanied by a possible record 100 “friend of the court” briefs, Kaiser Health News reported February 16.

While the ACA had some undeniable positive elements, including permitting young adults up to age 26 remain on their parents health plan, and several limitations on insurance industry abuses, such as barring them from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions, our health care nightmare is far from over.

As nurses have observed the past year, the economic crisis has accelerated broad declines in health linked to job loss, high medical bills, and families having to choose between paying for food, housing, clothing or healthcare.

As to the law itself, despite its name the ACA has done little to actually make healthcare affordable. Out of pocket health costs for families continue to soar largely unabated. Nurses now routinely see patients who have postponed needed care, sometimes even life-saving or life-prolonging care, because of the high co-pays and deductibles.

A Commonwealth Fund study last November, found that the U.S. stands out among high income countries for sick adults having cost and access problems with 27 percent unable to pay medical bills in the past year, compared to from 1 to 14 percent in other countries, and 42 percent skipping doctors visits, recommended care, or not filling prescriptions.
Dental care is a prime case study. A Pew Center report February 27 cited a 16 percent jump in the number of Americans heading to emergency rooms for routine dental problems, at a cost of 10 times more than preventive care with fewer treatment options than a dentist's office.

Nationally, premiums have jumped 50 percent on average the past seven years with more than six in 10 Americans now living in states where their premiums consume a fifth or more of median earnings.

Fifty million Americans still have no health coverage. Another 29 million are under insured with massive holes in their health plans, an increase of 80 percent since 2003, according to the journal Health Affairs.

The percentage of adults with no health insurance at 17.3 percent in the third quarter of 2011 was the highest on record, up from 14.4 percent just three years earlier, Gallup reported.

On quality, the U.S. continues to fall far behind other nations.
What should have been a shocking, under reported study from the University of Washington last June found more than 80 percent of U.S. counties badly trailing on life expectancy compared to nations with the best life expectancies. Some U.S. counties are more than 50 years behind their international counterparts, meaning they have the life expectancy that those nations had in 1957.

One reason for this disturbing news is the regression in death rates for child bearing women. The U.S. ranks just 41st in the world, and it has been getting worse, according to the World Health Organization. The average mortality rate within 42 days of childbirth has doubled in two decades, from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 13 deaths per 100,000 in 2007, partly due to a 10 percent cut in federal spending for maternal and child health programs the past seven years.
Those who think more handouts to the private insurers and other healthcare corporations will improve these dreadful statistics should think again. The wholesale domination of our health by the same Wall Street types who tanked our economy is exactly what has caused the falling health barometers on access, quality, and cost.

Most of the rest of the world has discovered a more humane, cost effective alternative, a national or single payer system, such as expanding and adequately funding Medicare to cover everyone. Even in countries where politicians have proposed privatization or sweeping health cuts they are being met with an aroused public unwilling to trade their health systems for the broken model we have here.

Whether the 2010 law is fully or partially thrown out by the courts, repealed in Congress, or fully implemented, the need for real reform, single payer/Medicare for all, will continue to grow. For now, the fight for single payer is being taken up state by state, a movement that America’s nurses will continue to promote.
 
Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of the 160,000-member National Nurses United, the nation’s largest union and professional association of nurses, and a national vice president of the AFL-CIO. Follow Rose Ann DeMoro on Twitter

By Donna Smith

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.

Then I woke up.  My reality jolted me back.  There were no doctors waiting to help me through the worry or read the newest tests that haven’t yet been done.   I was supposed to have three CT scans yesterday.  The prep I needed to drink was mixed, and the blood work completed to make sure that my kidneys were ready for the injected contrasts.  The scans were scheduled days ago after my primary care doctor called to tell me that some markers for cancer were elevated in one of the earlier tests she ran.  My symptoms match what the markers are showing, so I wasn’t exactly surprised when she called me.  But it is always an emotional shock to hear that anything cancer-related might be brewing.

But in my real world, the hospital called me early yesterday to say that my insurance company had not yet issued the authorization for the scans.  The insurance company wanted more time to talk to the doctors about the “clinicals.”  So, the tests were cancelled until the insurance company says they approve.  They were kind enough to tell the hospital that in 95 percent of the cases they will ultimately authorize the tests.  I do not believe that statistic, but if I did believe it, now I was left to worry not only about whether or not cancer has returned to my life but also if I’ll be one of the “lucky” people the insurance company decides is deserving of further evaluation.  I was not surprised, but I was sad.  I already felt physically pretty awful, and now I would have to wait.

The recent cancer scare for me comes as some issues emerged following the major surgery I had just five weeks ago.  I have been working hard to get better and stronger and get back to my work in helping advocate for a more sane healthcare system – one based on healthcare as a human right and one in which the care of my body is determined by me and my medical professionals and not the insurance company.  The insurance company had already booted me out of the hospital in just under two days following the surgery.  I had been stunned that the doctors seemed to want me to leave so soon until we arrived home that second day and the letter from the insurance giant was waiting to say the exact amount of time that had been approved for me.  Then it all added up.  No matter what shape I was in, the insurance company said I should go and few providers have the will to go toe-to-toe with the insurance companies they rely on for so much of their revenue.  The bills are just now starting to march in, so that’s its own trauma, aside from the physical healing I have worked to maximize.

In my post-surgical period, I have been exercising and eating well and growing stronger every day, but nagging symptoms persisted that led my doctor to the first round of tests that found the elevated markers.  It wasn’t the news I hoped for on the eve of my slated return to more work time.  I wanted not only to know if I actually have a recurrence of cancer but I also tried hard to get the exams scheduled so they wouldn’t interfere with my return to work.  Now, with another weekend looming, I get to worry longer about all of it.  I will go back to work with a cloud hanging over my head -- all because the insurance company wants to second-guess my doctor’s orders and my body’s symptoms and markers.

It is such a travesty that so many people in this nation have to fight to get needed care.  But another travesty is that we are led to believe that the healthcare reform passed in 2010 will fix the kinds of problems so many of us face with insurance companies like mine.  It won’t.  In fact, it is likely that as other kinds of controls are tightened on the insurance giants that the sorts of abuses I am feeling will grow more common.  More care denials and delays.  More patients waiting and worrying.  More diseases advancing.  Or in the alternate reality of those who believe that somehow a totally free-market system will solve the problems, I still say – dream on.  If many folks honestly think giving total control over to the same people who delay and deny care now while under some minimal control will improve things, they are so very wrong.  Those big, for-profit interests will not suddenly become kinder, gentler souls looking out for the health of each of their policy-holders.

Profit first is the wrong primary motivation for many things that make our lives better and our nation stronger.  Healthcare is certainly one of those things.   We have to work together to move the system beyond the policy of greed and protection of Wall Street’s healthcare corporate interests to one that advances human health and doesn’t drain personal wealth, not matter how modest.  A single-payer model, with a progressively financed, single standard of high quality care for all is better for all of us – and I like a system that is better for all.

So, while I wait for the final word from the insurance company on whether or not I’ll be having my scans as ordered by my doctors and as I continue working to transform this system from one of cruel intentional infliction of emotional and physical distress, I may just try to nap some more where my doctors from days gone by worry about and care for me.

Cross posted on Michael Moore's website here

Registered Nurse and NNU Co-President, Karen Higgins spoke at a Washington press conference opposing an amendment by Sen. Roy Blunt that would permit any employer or insurance plan to exclude any health service, no matter how essential, from coverage if they morally object to it. Her statement is below.

----------------------------

Thank you distinguished Senators, members of the press, and my professional colleagues, I am Karen Higgins, co-President of National Nurses United, the largest organization of direct care, bedside Registered Nurses in the US.

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.

This is wrong. And if the amendment proposed by Senator Blunt passes, access to care will be made elusive, not only for women, but for many of my patients.

National Nurses United, and Registered Nurses generally in the United States, believes that women, regardless of where they work, should have access to health insurance that covers preventive health care, including birth control, with no co-pays.

Nurses enact the values of caring and compassion everyday at the bedside and in clinics in every community. The Blunt proposal undermines these values when it allows any business, corporation or insurance company to deny any essential health care service they object to, including coverage for birth control.

And it goes far beyond contraception. The Blunt proposal creates a giant loophole that would permit any employer to restrict coverage for any health service under the fig leaf of a moral objection. At a time when more and more employers are already reducing covered services, this proposal is an open invitation to abuse.

Healthcare is a human right and should not be subject to employers and insurance companies’ control over what health-care decisions their employees can make. The Blunt proposal undermines the basic notion of health insurance:  care should be provided based on patient need as determined by the clinical judgment of health care providers.

National Nurses United opposes the Blunt amendment. In our health system, patients thrive when we let doctors and nurses make healthcare decisions with their patients, without interference from employers and insurance company bureaucrats. Thank you to these Senators and others for standing up for the rights of providers and patients to make our own healthcare decisions.

###

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Senate defeats bill to reverse birth control rule

By LAURIE KELLMAN, Thursday, March 1, 9:10 AM

AP WASHINGTON — The Senate has defeated a Republican effort to roll back President Barack Obama’s policy on contraception insurance coverage.

The measure sponsored by Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, a Republican, was defeated 51-48. The measure, an amendment to a pending transportation bill, would have allowed employers and insurers to opt out of portions of the president’s health care law they found morally objectionable. That would have included the law’s requirement that insurers cover the costs of birth control.

Republicans said it was a matter of freedom of religion; Democrats said it was an assault on women’s rights and could be used to cancel virtually any part of the law.

Huffington Post | February 27, 2012

With the approaching Supreme Court showdown on the President Obama's 2010 health care law (the Affordable Care Act, modeled, of course, on Mitt Romney's law in Massachusetts), the U.S. healthcare system remains a dysfunctional mess, as nurses bear witness to every day.

In late March, the Court will devote six hours over three days to oral arguments on the legal challenges to the law -- the most time the Court has given a case in 56 years. The testimony will likely be accompanied by a possible record 100 "friend of the court" briefs, Kaiser Health News reported February 16.

While the ACA had some undeniable positive elements, such as permitting young adults up to age 26 to remain on their parents health plan, and a few limitations on insurance industry abuses, such as barring them from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions, our health care nightmare is far from over.

And, as nurses have reported repeatedly the past year, the economic crisis has great aggravated the suffering with broad declines in health status that are directly linked to job loss, unpayable medical bills, and families having to choose between paying for food, housing, clothing or healthcare.

As to the law itself, despite its name the ACA has done little to actually make healthcare affordable. Out of pocket health costs for families continue to soar largely unabated. Nurses now routinely see patients who have postponed needed care, sometimes even life-saving or life-prolonging care, because of the co-pays and deductibles.

A Commonwealth Fund study in November, comparing the U.S. to other high income countries, found that the U.S. stands out for sick adults having cost and access problems with 27 percent unable to pay medical bills in the past year, compared to from 1 to 14 percent in other countries, and 42 percent skipping doctors visits, recommended care, or not filling prescriptions.

Nationally, premiums have jumped on average 50 percent over the past seven years with more than six in 10 Americans now living in states where their premiums consume a fifth or more of median earnings.

Universal coverage remains a far off dream. Fifty million Americans still have no health coverage. Another 29 million are underinsured, meaning they have massive holes in their health plans, an increase of 80 percent since 2003, according to the journal Health Affairs. The percentage of adults with no health insurance at 17.3 percent in the third quarter of 2011 was the highest on record, up from 14.4 percent just three years earlier, Gallup reported.

On quality, the U.S. continues to fall far behind other nations.

What should have been a shocking, underreported study from the University of Washington last June found that more than 80 percent of U.S. counties in free fall on life expectancy compared to nations with the best life expectancies. Some U.S. counties are more than 50 years behind their international counter parts, meaning they have the life expectancy that those nations had in 1957.

One reason for this disturbing news is the regression in death rates for child bearing women. The U.S. ranks just 41st in the world, and it has been getting worse, according to the World Health Organization. The average mortality rate within 42 days of childbirth has actually doubled in two decades, from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1987 to 13 deaths per 100,000 in 2007. One reason, a 10 percent cut in federal spending for maternal and child health programs the past seven years.

Those who think giving more handouts to the private insurers and other healthcare corporations will improve these dreadful statistics should think again. The wholesale domination of our health by the same Wall Street types who tanked our economy is exactly what has caused the falling health barometers on access, cost, and quality.

There is an alternative which most of the rest of the world has discovered, a national or single payer system, such as expanding and adequately funding Medicare to cover everyone. Even in other countries where conservative politicians have proposed privatization or sweeping health cuts they are being met with an aroused public unwilling to trade their health systems for the broken model we have here.

Whether the 2010 law is fully or partially thrown out by the courts, repealed in Congress, or fully implemented, the need for real reform, single payer/Medicare for all, will continue to grow. At this point the fight for single payer is being taken up state by state, a movement that we will continue to proudly support.

Follow Rose Ann DeMoro on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NationalNurses

Original Huffington Post article

###

California Nurses Association/Institute for Health and Socio Economic Policy, Jan. 28, 2011

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.

The Enduring Demise of the Austerity Doctrine.   The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, a British think tank, reports that four years after the Great Recession began, Britain is nowhere close to regaining its lost ground in terms of growth.   New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes that that failure undercuts any argument that the austerity doctrine – prominent in elite circles in both Europe and the US for the last two years – will address economic demise and gross inequality  it perpetuates. 

Britain has been pushing “expansionary austerity.”   But, asks Krugman, “How could the economy thrive when unemployment was already high, and government policies were directly reducing employment even further?”  State and local governments in the US, have slashed spending and employment which, Krugman maintains, “has been a major drag on the overall economy. Without those spending cuts, we might already have been on the road to self-sustaining growth; as it is, recovery still hangs in the balance.”

Why not a “living wage”?  In New York, key Democrats have introduced a bill to raise the state’s minimum wage to $8.50 an hour, a 17 percent increase.   The Empire State now joins Delaware, reports the Times, which  recently passed a minimum wage increase, and raises are in the mix in  California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri and New Jersey.

New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg supports the Dem’s proposal; however,  Gotham’s chief  executive – whose personal wealth is estimated at $20 billion —  beat back a living wage proposal of $10 an hour after his re-election   “It is impossible to live in this city on $15,000 a year,” Micah C. Lasher, Mr. Bloomberg’s director of state legislative affairs, told the New York Times.    Working at $8.50  an hour full-time grosses a worker $17,680 a year.

Had the national minimum wage kept pace with inflation over the past 40 years, it would be at $10.39 now, according to the  National Employment Law Project.  Says Paul Sonn, the Law Project’s legal co-director,  $8.50 an hour “really is not enough for New York’s cost of living and New York’s economy.”   Not by a long shot.

Technology’s great tradition.  Among those attending the World Economic Forum in Davos was Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.  He was talking up social media and related technologies.  Schmidt first came to the Davos event 15 years ago.  “At Davos the conversation is really about economic growth and the reality is that technological advancement benefits those who are educated but endangers jobs that are routine and automatable….This has been true for two hundred years with technologies,” said Schmidt.  With estimated wealth of $7 billion, Schmidt is the 136^th richest person in the world. 

Attention: Wall Street parents!  The cost of private school in New York City is breaking the $40,000 per year barrier, according to a recent report.  That’s just tuition.  Add-ons include spring training in Florida for sports.    Over the past 10 years, the median price of first grade in the city has gone up by 48 percent.  The New York Times reports that unlike public schools, which have faced severe cutbacks in the face of dwindling state and local revenues, private schools seem only to add courses, such as  languages.   “Offering Mandarin is a way to prepare students for the 21st-century world we live in,” said Trinity School’s headmaster.  Trinity has three theaters, six art studios, two tennis courts, a pool and a diving pool.

The percentage of students receiving financial aid has not increased alongside tuition. At the schools for which financial data was available,  18.5 percent of students received financial aid, the same figure as a decade ago.  

Oh where or where will Tim Geithner go?  With the announcement that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is to leave his post at the general election, speculation as to his destination is afoot.  Wall Street would be a solid guess.  Bill Moyers and Michael Winship reminded readers recently that  Jack Lew, President Obama’s new chief of staff used to work for Citigroup, as did Clinton-era Treasury chief Robert Rubin. Bill Daley, who Lew replaced, labored at JPMorgan Chase, “where he was maestro of the bank’s global lobbying and chief liaison to the White House,” write Moyers and Winship. Daley replaced Obama’s first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, who once worked as a rainmaker for the investment bank now known as Wasserstein & Company, where in less than three years he was paid a reported $18.5 million.  

Geithner will be playing catch up.  Average income for the richest 400 families in the US in 2008 was an $270 million, according to David Morris.  Had these tribes actually paid the statutory tax rate of 39 percent, Morris points out,  an additional $500 billion in revenue would be raised over 10 years.  

What they do pay, writes David Cay Johnston, is a whole lost less.  “The federal tax burden on the richest 400 has been slashed,” he writes,  “thanks to a variety of loopholes, allowable deductions and other tools. The actual share of their income paid in taxes, according to the IRS, is 16.6 percent. Adding payroll taxes barely nudges that number.”

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.

The Occupy movement has transformed the status quo, and built an experienced army of activists who will be heard from again and again.

Similarly America's nurses who spent much of 2011 helping to revive the call for meaningful action against Wall Street to demand restitution for the economic ruin are planning a year long campaign to continue to press for real reform.

We're starting with the premiere of a new video ad, "A Nightmare on Wall Street:"

The ad depicts an imagined encounter between a Wall Street banker and the victims of financial misdeed and the government's too-big-to-fail policies -- carried out at the expense of Main Street's small businesses, students, unemployed and elderly.

It's a fictional nightmare for the banker juxtaposed against an every day nightmare for the tens of millions of families enduring job loss, priced out of needed healthcare and educational opportunity, facing the loss of their home, and staring at a bleak and uncertain future, all while the 1 percent continue to enjoy their 50-foot yachts, corporate jets, and vacation homes.

With the video, we have a message for Wall Street. It's time to pay back for the damage you have wrought. A meaningful tax on stocks, bonds, derivatives, currencies, and other financial instruments could harvest up to $350 billion every year to help reframe the economy and heal America.

Many world markets already have such a financial transaction tax. The European Union is widely expected to pass a continent wide FTT this year.

With the help of National Nurses United members -- who held protests last year on Wall Street, outside the White House and Treasury Department, at dozens of Congressional offices, brought the message into Occupy protests coast to coast, and joined with international labor, environmental and non-government organizations to press the issue at the G-20 summit of world leaders in France, it's on the agenda again in the U.S.

Don't be misled by temporary blips in jobs numbers -- this crisis is real and enduring. With 18.5 million vacant homes and foreclosures apace, 3.5 million homeless and one in two Americans at or near poverty, America's nurses are sounding an online alarm.

Without a commitment to substantial new revenue, this appalling demise will continue with grievous consequences. In their hospitals and communities, America's registered nurses are seeing the very tangible results of an America engulfed in poverty and insecurity -- stress-related illnesses, mental and emotional collapse, suicide.

The nurses are not alone. In a recent national poll, 85% of primary care physicians and pediatricians identified "low household income" as a negative effect on health in more than half their patients. "Low access to adequate health insurance" measured the same.

Yet, the 1% grow richer. Their average annual household income is more than $1.5 million and average net worth in the tens of millions. Compensation pools at the seven biggest U.S. banks totaled $156 billion in 2011, a 3.7% increase over the previous year's record-breaking number.

The time is now: taxing Wall Street transactions is the starting point for a national recovery.
In addition to the ad, National Nurses United (NNU) has revamped an innovative website ProtestIntheUSA.org to help provide information for the movement of the 99 percent.

Visit the site are sign our Petition to Support a Real Financial Transaction Tax on Wall Street and to upload details and videos about protests in which they are involved.

Let's bring an end to the American nightmare, and genuinely restore the American dream.

Follow RoseAnn DeMoro on Huffington Post here

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently proposed changes to the conditions of participation that hospitals and critical access hospitals must meet in the Medicare and Medicaid Programs.

Billed as changes to “lift burdensome and duplicative regulations”, many of these changes represent a real threat to the autonomous practice and patient advocacy role of Registered Nurses.

National Nurses United is very concerned about this potential assault on our practice and has written a full response to these proposed changes which can be accessed here. Please read it here.

Below is an example of one of the proposed changes and an extract from NNUs response that you can craft your own response from:

The Deadline for comments is: 5 pm EST, December 23, 2011

URGENT ACTION NEEDED:

Submit your own comments on these egregious proposed changes

CMS PROPOSED CHANGE:

Proposed Nursing Services §482.23(c) (6) that would allow hospitals the flexibility to develop and implement policies and procedures for a patient and his or her caregivers/support persons to administer specific medications (non-controlled drugs and biologicals).

NNU RECOMMENDATION:

Disallow hospitals the flexibility to develop and implement policies and procedures for a patient and his or her caregivers/support persons to administer specific medications (non-controlled drugs and biologicals). Continue existing standard of practice. Clarify and define “biological”.

RATIONALE:

Unlicensed care givers, family members and friends do not have the education, training, and sophistication to monitor and treat the complications of illness/injury or its treatment. All safety and outcome data in published, peer reviewed studies argues against the industry assertion that medication administration, treatment or monitoring of patients admitted to acute care and critical access hospitals can be safely done by unlicensed caregivers or volunteers.

It would be incredibly difficult and burdensome to keep accurate records if patients were taking their own medications. RNs are only supposed to chart what they have directly observed and what has actually occurred. When a patient has their own medications in their room, and takes those medications when they usually do but without a nurse present, is it assumed that they took all the necessary medications? Assessing the capacity of the patient or the patient’s caregiver/support person adds to already extensive duties of nurses. The proposed regulations do not suggest additional staff to perform this function.

TAKE ACTION HERE:

Submit your own comments on these egregious proposed changes

by National Nurses Movement

A new NPR/Kaiser Family Foundation survey released today documented again the direct link between the economic crisis – you know the one Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman now says we ought to start calling a Depression – and families undermining their health.

Of 1,500 U.S. adults polled, half of whom have been without jobs for more than a year or work part-time while looking for full-time work, the study found that three-fourths of those unemployed or underemployed say they or a family member have delayed medical care because of the cost.
 
Let that sink in a minute – 75 percent of those in American families who have been discarded in the economic meltdown are self-rationing needed medical care.

Among the key findings:

• 46 percent skipped recommended medical treatment or a diagnostic test
• 40 percent did not fill needed prescription
• 63 percent postponed dental care or checkups
• 43 percent had problems paying medical bills
• 33 percent said their mental health has gotten much worse or somewhat worse as a result of their employment status

This is not a surprise to nurses. Months ago National Nurses United identified broad declines in health and living standards for substantial segments of the U.S. population as a direct consequence of low wages, unemployment, hunger, substandard housing and prohibitive medical bills. Among them:

Heart ailments in younger patients, especially in men in their 40s; hypertension; pancreatitis, typically an adult disease now increasingly found in children due to high fat diets linked to low incomes; a range of "gut" disorders, such as colitis; increased obesity linked to poverty; manifold mental illnesses, including anxiety disorders, in youth populations; and higher asthma rates with reports surfacing of deaths as a result of the delays tied to poverty or insurance obstacles.

The economic pandemic is global, of course. But somehow the impact on health is worse in the U.S. That’s what a Commonwealth Fund study last month showed. It compared 11 of the world’s richest nations, and found that sicker adults in the U.S. took top honors for having healthcare cost and access problems.
More than one-fourth could not pay medical bills over the past year, compared to just 1 percent to 14 percent in the other countries. Further, 42 percent of U.S. adults said they had put off visiting a doctor, filling a prescription or getting other recommended care, twice the rate for most of the other nations.
What’s the difference? Those other countries have some form of a national healthcare system or single payer system, such as our Medicare program that so many U.S. politicians on both sides of the aisle are itching to cut.

Some of their counterparts abroad are equally shortsighted, such as the conservative Cameron government in the UK, now pushing major cuts in their crown jewel National Health System. The last thing British patients need is for politicians to be emulating the U.S. model and pushing toward a more broken healthcare system with its great race to the bottom.

Every day nurses see the living embodiment of the patients and families behind the statistics listed in the NPR/Kaiser survey, one reason that U.S. nurses have long advocated a more humane healthcare system not based on ability to pay, but one that guarantees healthcare for all in a single payer system, such as expanding and adequately funding Medicare to cover everyone.

That’s been a fundamental plank of NNU’s call for a Main Street Contract for America, which also calls for good jobs with dignity for everyone, which along with guaranteed healthcare is the only effective solution to the deplorable numbers found in both the NPR/Kaiser survey and the Commonwealth Study.

NNU has also been stepping up the campaign for a major funding mechanism with a tax on Wall Street, the very banks and financial firms which tore that giant hole in our economy by gambling with people’s mortgages, pensions, and other reckless financial misdeeds.

The nurses’ proposal a small financial transaction tax of just 50 cents on every $100 of trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives, and other major trades (exempting normal consumer activity) could raise up to $350 billion every year to help reframe our economy, heal America, and end the shame of people sacrificing their health and lives due to the cost.

In a year of ghastly stories from the economic implosions on Main Street, this one might have been the worst.

A Texas woman who was blocked from receiving food stamps for five months for the most bureaucratic of reasons, inadequate paper work, shot her own children and herself in despair after a seven-hour standoff in a Laredo, Texas state services offices December 6.

The mom had applied for food stamps in July, facing denial after denial, delay after delay.

Sadly, it's far from the only story of a family destroyed by economic calamity in recent months. In August, a woman -- not someone on welfare, but a professional -- was reported to have shot and killed her 13-year-old son and herself in Kensington, Md.

A note found on the scene contained the chilling words, "Debt is bleeding me. Strangled by debt." She was particularly anguished with the high tuition costs for school for her special needs son.

Can we do something at long last about the economic plight ripping black holes through the social fabric of our society and destroying families from coast to coast.

While a shooting understandably garners headlines, there are far more cases like the story of a Denver woman whose 9-year son died when he was denied Medicaid he needed for life saving medications for asthma, despite her repeated calls.

If millions of Americans are living lives of quiet desperation it is up to the rest of us to make sure they do not suffer in silence.

The lack of compassion for the poor is a national disgrace, especially as the economic nightmare places more families every day in poverty. Today, tens of millions of Americans are one paycheck or one illness from being the poor. Enough already. We need Robin Hood!

Months ago National Nurses United began speaking out, and campaigning for a Main Street Contract for the American People, premised on the basics that should be the foundation of the American dream -- especially jobs with dignity, healthcare for all not based on ability to pay, and full funding for quality public education.

NNU also has a program of how to pay for much of it, a tax on Wall Street. It's not unique to the U.S., part of what makes this idea so universal and resonant. There's a global campaign for what the British call a Robin Hood tax, as portrayed in this stellar video featuring great British actor Bill Nighy.

Our proposal is a small tax of 50 cents on every $100 of trades of stocks, bonds, derivatives, and other financial transactions that could raise up to $350 billion every year. That revenue alone could fund 9 million new jobs, fund the food plans of 24 million families of four for a year, or lift 3.8 million female headed households out of poverty for over nine years.

Why do we need Robin Hood, in Britain and the rest of the developed world? On the same day of the bloodshed in Laredo, a new report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development documented the highest level of income inequality in more than three decades in the 34 developed countries it tracks.

Overall average incomes of the richest tenth were nine times the bottom tenth; the U.S. ratio was 14-1.

The original Robin Hood was fed up with income inequality and took direct action to re-balance the priorities.

Now, he has more than a merry band dancing around in the woods on his side.

Supporters of the Robin Hood tax include not just nurses, but also the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury from England, the former UN General Secretary Kofi Annan, the conservative leaders of France and Germany, Nicholas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, and a long list of prominent economists, including the former chief economist of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz. And, many international labor, non-governmental, environmental, and consumer groups.

Enactment of a Robin Hood tax will be too late to help the families in Laredo and Kensington, Md., but for millions of other families falling through the cracks, a Robin Hood tax could be a vital lifeline.
Learn more and tell us your story here.

As more than 2 million nurses, teachers, paramedics and other workers held the largest strike in over three decades across Great Britain, National Nurses United, joined by other union members, held energetic support rallies in six U.S. cities to show solidarity with their embattled British counterparts.

At rallies outside the British embassy in Washington, and British consulates in Boston, Chicago, Orlando, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, nurses picketed, and delivered a letter from NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro to consular officials showing support for the massive British strike.

The United Steel Workers, Teamsters, AFT, ATU, SEIU, AFL central labor councils, Unite-Here, and members of Occupy DC and Occupy Chicago, were among labor and community activists joining the solidarity actions.

The historic British strike was called by the workers to protest brutal cuts to their pensions and retirement benefits.

As nurses and other union members and activists said in the support rallies in the U.S., American workers face similar fights.

NNU Co-President Karen Higgins, RN speaking at DC rally

After she was allowed inside the gates of the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., Karen Higgins, RN, NNU co-president, told the approximately 200 protestors gathered outside, “I said to them, if people have to keep working with no pensions, it is hurting everyone. I told him he needs to get in touch with his comrades across the pond and tell them this cannot happen.”  

Washington Hospital Center RN Rajini Raj said, “We're here in support of the more than two million people striking in Great Britain today. We know an injury to one is an injury to all even if there is an ocean between us.”  The nurses were joined by members of several national labor unions, including AFT, SEIU, the Teamsters, and the D.C. Metropolitan Central Labor Council  along with dozens of people who joined from Occupy DC.

Tommy Ratcliff, President of Teamsters Local 639, said, “It's going to continue to happen to public workers and private workers. 14 million people are out of work -- where will it end?  It's just corporate greed. It's the difference between the 1 percent and the 99 percent.”

Boston action

Chicago rally

More than 100 people, including USW members from both the greater Chicago area and Indiana, rallied in Chicago. Rally speakers included NNU co-president Jean Ross, RN, and representatives of the Chicago Labor Federation, UNITE-HERE, Amalgamated Transit Union, Chicago Teachers Union, Progressive Democrats of America, and Occupy Chicago. After police initially blocked entrance to the consulate, consular officials eventually agreed to come down and meet with a delegation.

Los Angeles rally

A similar scene occurred in Los Angeles, where the consulate stalled on meeting with protesters, but agreed to meet when the rally participants, who numbered over 100, made it clear they would not be turned away. The action included nurses and members of the California Teachers Association, LA County Labor Federation, and the Physicians for a National Health Plan.

In San Francisco, where a delegation of nurse leaders met with the city’s consular general, 100 people from NNU picketed the downtown consulate.

Zenei Cortez, RN delivers letter to San Francisco Consul General Priya Guha

“Even though we all live in different parts of the world, we are all fighting for the same issues,” said Zenei Cortez, RN, a co-president of the California Nurses Association, and an NNU vice president addressing the San Francisco picket.

In her letter, addressed to Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Great Britain’s Ambassador to the U.S. and copied to other consular officials, DeMoro noted that U.S. nurses strongly support British workers “who are standing up for their rights and for the integrity of public services in your country.”

“We urge the British government to stop its attempt to make public-sector workers pay more and work longer to receive a smaller pension when they retire.  The government’s plans will impact women the most, who already suffer from lower pensions.   This attack on the people who provide patient care at the National Health Service, teach school children, and provide essential public services is unconscionable,” DeMoro said.

Among major participants in the U.K. strike is UNISON, whose members include many nurses and other healthcare workers. The strikers are saying no to “pay more, work longer, get less,” a so-called “triple squeeze” in which pensions are reduced and age eligibility extended.  

“The plans are just a cynical move to raise 4 billion [British pounds] to pay down the deficit caused by the bankers,” said Karen Jennings, UNISON’s assistant general secretary.  

One solution put forward both in the U.S. and in the U.K. is for passage of a financial transaction tax (FTT) – in Britain termed a “Robin Hood Tax.”   An FTT is a sales tax aimed at speculative trading and would raise up to $350 billion a year in the U.S. alone.  

“NNU supports an FTT around the globe,” said NNU Secretary-Treasurer Martha Kuhl, RN at the San Francisco picket, “so that everyone can enjoy the essential services they deserve, and so that the workers who provide these services don’t have to take cut backs.”

“Nurses see what this economy is doing to our communities in stress, dislocation, and poverty,” said Karen Higgins, RN and NNU co-president. “We are going out in support of UNISON, drawing the line against cuts to retirement security and other essentials for working families.”

RELATED LINKS:

This blog also posted on DailyKos.com

See a collection of Solidarity posts from U.S. RNs and Allies to U.K. Nurses and Public Workers

US Nurses and Allies Stand by UK Nurses,
Public Workers in Rallies in Six US Cities

More than 2 million public sector workers staged a nationwide strike, closing schools and bringing councils and hospitals to a virtual standstill in the UK today. Deep resentment over proposed cuts to public sector pensions provoked the huge strike, the largest in a generation. The action – with 29 unions participating - included walkouts by UK Border Agency staff, probation officers, radiographers, librarians, job center workers, courts staff, social workers, refuse collectors, midwives, road sweepers, cleaners, school meals staff, paramedics, tax inspectors, customs officers, passport office staff, police civilian staff, driving test examiners, patent officers, and health and safety inspectors

Here, National Nurses United led solidarity protests at British government offices in six cities and protesters were reminded of parallel threats to Social Security. Read the full press release here.

We sent an email asking our members and friends to attend rallies and many of you did! We also asked that you post solidarity comments. Below are some we received. Thank you!

WASHINGTON, DC

As a former Unison member and former NHS RGN, I stand in complete solidarity of  their actions to walk out on 30 November.  It is a deplorable action the British government has chosen to take and I will be supporting you. Hopefully the RCN will come to their senses and join you! Good Luck and I wish you Success in your struggle.
Cathy Hampton, RN
Washington, DC

We support our brothers and sisters at UNISON in their struggle to protect their retirement security from unjustified attacks by those responsible for the financial debacle.
Mark Langevin, Trade Union Organizer
Washington, DC

NEW YORK

They break the promises they make to you as well as to all other healthcare workers. They don't care about the needy and poor that we care for knowing they need all the help we can give. But when those legislators and wealthy business people need us, they are all doe eyes and sad faces grimacing in the agony of their infirmity. Where they want the very best care possible which we give because we have promised to do the best regardless of who the patient is. Stay strong for the poor, the needy and the downtrodden, for they are truly deserving of the care we give them. Remember Our fight if for more than fair pay and benefits."
Guy Nichols, EMT
Jamaica, NY

Nurses, Workers of the World Unite!  Make those greedy corporations pay you the decent wages and benefits you deserve!
Amy Harlib
New York, NY

FLORIDA

We stand together to assure that patients get the care they need.
Joan Verret, RN
Lakeland, FL

I stand with all nurses globally. Do not suspend our right to a secure retirement.
Diana Hatsis, Clinical Research Assoc.
Boynton Beach, FL

The nurses here in Orlando support you all the way. We are all fighting for the same cause.I wil be there we my other co-workers. We must stay united.
Denise Klein, RN
Kissimmee, FL

Lift up your voices in unity and you cannot fail. Stay strong. Know that over 170,000 nurses in the US support you.
Mary Fentress, RN
Pinellas Park, FL

My strong support for a NNU and United Kingdom. Was that NNU is doing a great job. I would like to someday get to participate in its activities.
Maria de Lourdes Torres, RN
Miami, FL

I have worked with many outstanding UK nurses over the past 37 years.
 I stand with you and support all efforts by nurses to protect patient care by protecting themselves.
Dr. John Silver Ph.d, RN, Educator
Plantation, FL

I stand by all my brothers and sisters in spirit today as we continue to fight for sane working conditions and liveable wages and benefits.
Pamela Smith, RN
Port Charlotte, FL

ILLINOIS

I honor your activism and compassion and will be with you in spirit. Nurses united will never be defeated!
Connie Hawley-Lowe, RN
Makanda, IL

UNITED WE STAND! CORPORATE GREED IS DESTROYING HUMANITY. We must STAND STRONG. No sacrifice No surrender!
Dawn Peckler, RN
Chicago, IL

Stand up for your rights. We're with you.
Barbara Hardin, RN
Cicero, IL

I support the National Nurses United, Occupy Wall Street, and all of the 99% people like me!
Paul Haider, Psychologist
Chicago, IL 

If the workers of the world do not stand together, the 1% will use them against each other to further their greedy purposes.  NurseGloria
Gloria Maloney, RN
Roscoe, IL

MASSACHUSETTS

Keep up the struggle for fair and descent working conditions. When we struggle together, the fairness spreads. Its like lighting a fuse, it soon spreads and expands to many worldwide.
Abigail Howes, Coordination of Care Aide
Berkley, MA    

Thank you nurses and workers in the UK for refusing to accept responsibility for what the banks and financial "wizards" did to our economy. We will take the economy back! In solidarity.
Rosemary Kean, RN, CS
Boston, MA

Protect the worker rights of nurses. Society needs good nurses. Tax the tax cheats and corporations that do not pay their fair share.
Kathleen Hursen, Retired RN
Framingham, MA

MICHIGAN

Solidarity from the US, keep up the good fight, this is a global movement now!!  We must all rise up, and fight against those who through fraud and corruption are stealing from the citizens around the world their rights to a decent living, and life.
Julia Williams, RN
Fraser, MI

To All of My British Colleagues, Thank you I am in solidarity with you! You are fighting for nurses and patients the world over.
Margaret Kingsbury, RN (49 years)
Lansing, MI

I stand with you in mind and spirit!  We must stand up for what is right.
Theresa Premo-Peaphon, RN
Lansing, MI

OHIO

Support sent your way!
Sharon Pollard, RN
Euclid, OH

TEXAS

We are on your side 100%
Linda Kendrick, RN
Sugar Land, TX

CANADA

Go Nurses! What an amazing force you can be when we work together.  This Canadian nurse is behind you 100%.
Suzanne Hrynyk, RN
Winnipeg, Manitoba

CALIFORNIA

We will keep our "Oil Lamps Burning For You"
Suzanne Anderson, RN
San Jose, CA

I stand with you in spirit. I am unable to attend a rally. As a Registered Nurse for the past 43 years, and as a Human Being on this planet, we all deserve respect. I myself face living in poverty at retirement. Can't we all support each other? I think we can. Keep up the fight!
Joan McCusker, RN (43 years)
Livermore, CA

As an AFT union member and teacher myself, I understand that the same wealthy elite are trying to steal your retiree pensions the way they are trying to steal from me.  When you stand up to those  thieves, you stand for me and my family as well as for your own.  Thanks for all you will do tomorrow to raise awareness and to FIGHT BACK against losses that will make us work until we die.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Jackie Goldberg, Faculty Adviser, Teacher Education Programs    
Los Angeles, CA   

You all are an important assets to our communities and our families we are the 99%. Thank you for speaking out and standing up for what's right for humanity.
Betty Buchanan
Bakersfield, CA

United We Stand, Divided We Fall
Elizabeth Castillo, RN
Lakewood, CA  

Keep up the good work and Patient Care and eventually our words will be heard throughout the world.In support of my UK brothers and Sisters in SOLIDARITY WE STAND!
Rick Solinger ER Nurse
Santa Cruz, CA

We are coming to San Francisco to march in support of our sisters!
Joan Silva, RN
Atascadero, CA

Si Se Puede!
Michael Misquez, Retired
Pico Rivera, CA

We stand with you professionally, personally and as union brothers and sisters. We are Universal Nurses United.
Elizabeth Pataki, Retired RN
Sacramento, CA

I am a Public Sector Nurse. We Stand with you! The day has come for International Solidarity to protect Public services and all workers.
Maureen    Dugan, RN
San Francisco, CA

Fellow nurses stay strong, stand up for your rights! We who spend years of our lives caring for others often at the expense of our own bodies and health deserve to retire with
dignity and financial security. Nurses in the US understand your message and support you in your struggle. Licensed since 1982. Hoping to retire someday!
Ann Magner-Danz, RN
Pacifca, CA

All nurses stand with you as we stand for our communities and patients.
Richard Sandness, RN
El Dorado Hills, CA

I am a retired RN and I understand in "real time" the importance of retirement security at the end of your life.  I am in solidarity with you as you fight back against the forces of injustice that working against you.
Victoria Bermudez, Retired RN
Carmichael, CA

Stay together and WIN!
Lonnie Kidd, RN
San Francisco, CA

Stand strong nurses. All of us American nurses are pulling for you!
Laurie Trent, RN
Plumas Lake, CA

Thank you NNU for showing support for nurses all across the world.
Melanie Tang, RN
Daly city, CA

I am a member of CNA. I stand behind you 100 % and wish I could be there to stand beside you!  It is criminal what they are trying to do.  You give so much and expect so little and even that they want to take away!  Are we not entitled to a pension to be able to live after retirement like the big CEO's who make millions each year and have more benefits and retirement, enough to take are of several people when they retire!  Let's see some benefits taken away from them!  Hang in there we will fight the fight with you.
Elizabeth Malmendier, RN
Folsom, CA

YES! I support the force.
Marie Di Peri, RN
Beverly Hills, CA

A RN in Moreno Valley supports YOU.
Monica Medice, RN
Moreno Valley, CA

I stand united with you in spirit. May you continue to fight for the basic needs we all deserve. Don't give up!
Alexis Cooper, RN
Carson, CA

I stand in solidarity with my fellow nurses and workers in Britain.
Vicki Gutierrez, RN
Irvine, CA

I am a retired professor and public health worker and I am in solidarity with you.  If my state pension, which I paid into, were to be reduced I would be in serious financial trouble.  We face the same problems worldwide, and I want to thank you for your resistance.  It helps all workers.  Stay strong!  And win!
Ayesha Gill, Retired
Oakland, CA

On the web at: http://www.nader.org

If that were true, though, these leaders, including Michigan's Fred Upton and Dave Camp, would have considered a solution that works for the 99 percent and makes the 1 percent pay their fair share.

That solution is a financial transaction tax - a minuscule fee on Wall Street trading that's used effectively in more than 40 countries, including those in the world's seven fastest-growing financial markets.

As tireless advocates for their patients at the bedside and beyond, Michigan nurses have pushed this solution to support America's workers and families who are struggling while corporations collect record profits at their expense.

A tax of less than one percent on activities like stock trades and derivative sales could raise up to $350 billion to immediately put people to work and protect essential safety net programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The tax would target the big banks and Wall Street traders who gambled with Americans' mortgages and pensions and crashed our economy. It would also discourage excessive speculation, the main cause of the 2008 crash.

Our country is in this mess because politicians sold out working men and women to reckless banks and Wall Street gamblers whose unchecked greed threw us into a recession. Then they gave those corporations trillions in taxpayer bailouts to support the richest powerful Americans, leaving Michigan mired in double-digit unemployment, foreclosures, and rising poverty.

Michigan's nurses see the human suffering that this ongoing economic crisis has caused every day in their patients' lives. They've called on Congress to rebuild our country by supporting our Main Street Contract for the American People. The contract focuses on jobs at living wages; quality education; guaranteed health care; secure retirement; good housing and protection from hunger; a safe and healthy environment; and a just taxation system where corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share - including the financial transaction tax.
 
The U.S. had a financial transaction tax for decades, up to 1966, and many have tried to bring it back. It's no surprise that they find little support in Washington, where the corporations and CEOs who write campaign checks have more say than ordinary working Americans.

Rep. Camp, for example, is pushing to cut corporate taxes, although dozens of profitable multibillion-dollar corporations go years without paying a dollar in taxes, yet still pay their CEOs huge bonuses and donate plenty to politicians.

No, without a tax on Wall Street, "everything" has not been on the table - especially not the values of the 99 percent, including accountability, taking care of each other and paying one's fair share.

The window has closed for the supercommittee to heal our nation's broken priorities and create an economy that works for everyone.

The doors are wide open now, though, for citizens to demand louder than ever that our leaders stop protecting their campaign donors on Wall Street and start supporting our workers and families on Main Street.

###

Amidst the scourge of inequality sweeping the world, marked by continued profits, pay-outs and record levels of cash hoarding -- the spoils of the 1% -- one group has come forward with a remedy, refusing to stand down. Nurses from four continents gathered at the G-20 Summit last week to tell world leaders that time is running out: revenue is needed now and the starting point is a global finance tax.

That call for remedy is resonating. It is loud and it is getting louder, and half measure legislation is not a substitute for a movement.

Just last week, in addition to the actions at the G-20, 2,000 people, including RN members of National Nurses United joined by the AFL-CIO and other unions, environmental and community groups, and participants from the Occupy Wall Street movement, marched on the White House and Treasury Department.

Like the nurses at the G-20, they were calling on the Obama administration to support a tax on Wall Street, the U.S. version of a financial transaction tax to raise desperately needed revenue to heal our economy. Similar marches occurred in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Nurses have been rallying for months, and putting pressure on the White House and members of Congress to support a meaningful tax on Wall Street to provide the funding necessary for such basic needs as health care for all, jobs with dignity, and quality public education.

An FTT, a sales tax on trading in stocks, bonds, derivatives and targeting speculative activity, is now on the world agenda. For the first time, the 20 most powerful countries convened to discuss raising revenue from such a tax.

Pressure is also mounting within the U.S. One bill by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), has been introduced. However, the estimates cited in print of $350 billion are over nine years -- far short of what is needed to reframe our devastated economy. We do not have nine years to wait. A better approach would be an FTT that raises $350 billion every year.

Moreover, the revenue in the current bill is earmarked for deficit reduction, i.e. further job reduction and infrastructure destruction which would only make matters worse. There are trillions of dollars sitting idle or wasted in the market casino, as such, and we are building a social demand for the FTT to be used as an economic stimulator and to reorganize the social priorities of our country. The 99% want a solution now that actually changes our lives now.

FTT proposals share critical underpinnings: speculation and manipulation in financial markets triggered collapse from which the world has not emerged; poverty and near-poverty are rampant and spreading, engulfing millions of families in the U.S. alone; financial profits should be tapped for meaningful revenues to save the many communities in crisis; and financial taxes are a starting point--- a down payment. In this country today we are witnessing the greatest transference of wealth upwards in our entire history. That dynamic, here and elsewhere, must stop now.

The financial tax the nurses support would provide up to $350 billion every year in the U.S. alone and billions more in other societies. We know what is needed to put Americans back to work, provide quality health care and schools for all, to start restoring our environment and address hunger and homelessness. "The number of people living in neighborhoods of extreme poverty," wrote the New York Times on November 4, "grew by a third over the past decade...." Nearly 50 million Americans live in households deemed "food insecure."

Wall Street firms, in the meantime, including banks and their trading arms -- are making massive fortunes, "more profit in the first 2 1/2 years of the Obama administration than they did during the entire Bush administration," according to the Washington Post, November 6.

We also know that in the face of overwhelming community need, trillions of dollars sit on the sidelines. Trillions.

Cash holdings of non-financial S&P 500 are over $1 trillion--"more cash than in decades," according to the Templeton Income Fund, with cash held abroad by U.S. companies adding $1.5 trillion. Cash holdings at European non-financials is now 800 million euros, putting Greek protests in some perspective. Trillions more sit in the accounts of wealthy individuals on both continents.

"How can the financial sector triumphantly continue to march," said President Sarkozy of France at the G-20, "indifferent to the world around it, carelessly and without a care for the disorder it has more than its share in causing?" German Chancellor Merkel agreed. And President Obama, disregarding the unwavering counsel of Treasury Secretary Geithner to leave Wall Street to its own devices, indicated that while not favoring the tax he would not seek to block others from enacting it.

Sarkozy, Merkel and Obama were listening when thousands protested, including the nurses, last week in France -- an outcry of global proportions certain to repeat. An array of support comprised this protest -- Oxfam, unions, consumer groups, ecologists, Occupy Wall Street and other armies of occupiers -- all committed to a reordering of world priorities and in support of a finance tax. "[A] billion people [are] on the edge of starvation or worse, but not beyond reach by any means," said Noam Chomsky on November 2. We won't stand down in the face of this challenge.

This extraordinary commitment to cash by the 1% is incendiary.

Meanwhile, Congress considers cutting essential programs, including in Social Security and Medicare. All these programs are on the cutting block even as the Census Bureau announces increases in poverty. Millions more would be in poverty, the new study contends, but for the programs government intends to curtail.

Nurses will continue to focus on building a movement. The nurses bear daily witness to the awful effects of the colossal demise engulfing communities everywhere and we will not stand down. The nurses commitment to care does not end at the bedside.

For more about the movement in the U.S. as well as globally, and to find materials, literature, bumper stickers, and more, visit our website at www.mainstreetcontract.org.

NNU has entered a new era in becoming part of an international campaign to advocate on behalf of not only our patients and Main Street communities at home, but people in crisis around the world, and to hold Wall Street and other global financial institutions accountable to heal our nations.

Activities by an NNU delegation to the G-20 summit of world leaders in France November 3 capped the final leg of three days of international actions, organized by an unprecedented number of trade union, environmental, NGO, student, and anti-poverty organizations, all protesting the G-20 summit and the global economic crisis. Nurse organizations from four continents, at the initiative of NNU, were front and center in these actions.

Our year long campaign calling for a tax on Wall Street financial transactions to help raise needed revenue to fund programs like healthcare for all, good jobs, quality public education and other social needs to address the plight of American communities has converged incredibly with global efforts by the international labor community, and non-governmental (NGO) organizations like Oxfam and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to pass a “Robin Hood” financial transaction tax (FTT) to address needs including poverty and social development.

Jill Furillo, RN and other NNU nurses march in Cannes, France to urge
international support for a Financial Transaction Tax. See more images here.

On Tuesday, November 1, an international delegation of nurses, including RNs from France, Korea, Ireland, Australia, and the US (NNU) lead the contingent of the CGT, a trade union confederation representing over 700,000 French workers, in a massive march through the streets of Nice, protesting the G-20.

NNU Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro addressed the crowd from a flatbed truck, calling upon the G-20 countries to pass the FTT to fund social services throughout the world, and was loudly cheered by environmental, trade union, and community groups – all ecstatic that we were all fighting the same fight.

On Wednesday, our delegation participated in an a.m. press conference in a large hospital in Cannes, organized by the CFDT – another huge trade union federation representing over 825,000 workers in France. Together, all of the nurses spoke in support of the French nurses and healthcare workers who are fighting the austerity plans of French President Sarkozy, who proposes to cut 10% of healthcare services, eroding staffing standards and harming the national healthcare system.

An international group of nurses and Oxfam spokesman and actor Bill
Nighy during a press conference at the G20 summit in Cannes, France
promoting a Financial Transaction Tax. See more images here.

Each group spoke to the importance of solidarity in our commitment to push for the FTT in the international arena. Our group participated in several discussions with these unions about strategies for future actions and shared stories of our recent actions that have built this movement in our respective countries to date. We met simultaneously with NGO's from numerous countries on collective strategies to move the FTT forward.

On Thursday, we gathered with representatives from   Public Services International, which represents 20 million public service workers in 150 countries,  the International Trade Union Confederation, the umbrella federation representing the labor movements in all the G-20 nations, WWF, and well known British actor and Oxfam Global Ambassador Bill Nighy, to host a press event. It featured a spirited skit displaying the unique role nurses are playing in advocating for the FTT, as a first step in funding social services, healthcare, a healthy environment, and jobs and education programs.

Nurses present more than 300,000 petition signatures to staffers of the Senate
Finance Committee in Washington, D.C. on Nov. 3 as part a global day of action
in support of a Financial Transaction Tax. See more images here.

Our actions garnered extensive press. We were also invited to address an international gathering of the ITUC who applauded our leadership in building momentum for passage of the FTT. We also had a great meeting with the leadership of the Robin Hood Tax group who frankly, love the nurses.

These events have placed NNU at the center of the international movement to pass the FTT. Many of the groups mentioned above have been watching our work on this issue in the United States with our Main Street Contract campaign, our marches in front of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in May, our large rally on Wall Street in June, our Sept. 1 events in front of 60 Congressional offices, and our work in supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement – including providing first aid to occupiers while bringing the message of the FTT to that movement.

As we concluded the international events on November 3, nurses rallied simultaneously in Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles, again, garnering national and international press coverage.

Nurses march in Los Angeles as part of a global day of action November 3
to push political leaders to support a FInancial Transaction Tax. See more images here.

Our work on this issue is respected and admired globally, and we will continue to engage in the international arena because it will take international solidarity to hold Wall Street accountable and pass the FTT.

Building these international relationships will be fundamental to ensuring our success in challenging global corporate giants, from the banks to the healthcare industry,  to change national and international priorities, and ensure that policies are implemented throughout the world that put protect our communities.

Jill Furillo, RN, is the National Bargaining Director for National Nurses United

###

From Madison to Wall Street, from St. Paul to Washington D.C., people are seeing nurses dressed in red scrubs, holding not a stethoscope but a megaphone. We are carrying signs. We are marching en masse. And we are raising our voices. This may seem unusual behavior for our profession, but in truth, our history is deeply rooted in social advocacy, as well as the bedside advocacy you’ve come to trust. We’re doing more because we must.

We are facing a crisis in our profession and in the realm in which it serves. Anger is building. We see it in the weary faces of our colleagues, hear it in the exasperated tone of our voices and feel it in the now-permanent clench of our jaws.

But we’ve recognized that if this is true for the majority of us, an insidious grand scheme is working. Wall Street power brokers are counting on us to assume the role of submissive, quiet caregivers who don’t question or protest.

Imagine their surprise to discover, instead, enraged and engaged nurses. We’ve connected the dots that directly link power and greed to inadequate staffing and unsafe conditions for the patients in our care. The deplorable conditions in which we work right now are fully intentional. Wall Street is literally getting away with murder.

It is up to us to expose the travesty that financial inequity inflicts on our society; 2.7 million nurses in the United States do have a voice – and we are obligated by our social contract to use our influence for good.

We witness Main Street hurting. Millions have lost their jobs and their homes, face bankrupting medical bills and are jammed into over-crowded classrooms and emergency rooms. Soup kitchens, food pantries and food stamps now provide sustenance for millions more. Meanwhile, Wall Street-funded politicians are intent on stealing more from working families.

That is why nurses across the nation have been leading the movement for a Main Street Contract. We protested last spring on the streets of Madison, where our supply of signs demanding a “Tax on Wall Street to Heal America” was drained within minutes. And on Sept. 1, nurses held 61 actions all over the country urging elected officials to commit to the principles of the Main Street Contract to rebuild the American dream.

We are cheering and marching and even lending our professional hands now with the Occupy actions arising all over our country.

Nurses are turning our anger into action, realizing our power – and making a difference.

We must make Wall Street pay for the devastation it has caused families on Main Street. Our clear-cut, concise solution is a Financial Transaction Tax. It is a modest levy on trades of stocks, derivatives and currencies that could generate billions in revenue to help our ailing economy, stimulate job growth, re-fund essential services, and discourage the reckless, high-volume/short-term profit computer-driven Wall Street gambling that lead to our current economic crisis. First proposed by a Nobel Prize winning economist, the initiative is already in play in more than 40 countries around the world.

But as we all in the labor movement continue to speak up on this larger scale, we have no doubt we will be subject to ridicule poisonous onslaughts from every corner. It has already begun. An editorial in the Boston Herald in response to our Nurses National Day of Action questioned our organizational right to demand economic justice.

Here’s their direct statement: “We assumed a labor union that represents nurses was in the business of negotiating fair pay and decent working conditions for those who do the difficult work of caring for the sick. We didn’t realize that federal tax policy and securities regulation were part of its portfolio.”

This patriarchal, condescending venom is directly aimed at instilling self-doubt among our ranks. It is meant for us to question our role in social justice – both as nursing professionals and labor activists. It is a menacing shot across the bow to intimidate us from using the strongest tool any society has against oppression – that of collective action.

So get out the vaccine, friends. Take the strongest dose possible, and duly prepare yourself for more vicious attacks.

This is no time to question ourselves. Indeed, question everything else except our own role, our own power and our own vision of a healthy America.

– Linda Hamilton is president of the Minnesota Nurses Association. Bernadine Engeldorf is first vice president of the MNA. Jean Ross is co-president of National Nurses United. All three labor leaders are registered nurses.

Our nurses are currently operating RNRN/NNU First Aid Nurses Stations in the following locations major Occupy Wall Street sites:

• San Francisco, CA
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Washington DC.

Although there have been attempts in numerous cities to shut down the First Aid Nurses Station, RNs have successfully protected the First Aid Nurses Station. 

Thank you for rising to the occasion, once again, and being there when you are most needed.

Will President Obama be the main holdout when world leaders meet early next month at the G-20 summit in France?

Will President Obama be the main holdout when world leaders, under growing pressure from the occupy Wall Street protests across the world and demand building for a tax on international financial transactions, meet early next month at the G-20 summit in France?

Nurses from at least four continents, including a U.S. delegation from National Nurses United, will deliver that message November 3 at the G-20 summit meeting November 3 in Cannes – urging enactment of a financial transaction tax that could raise hundreds of billions of dollars a year to heal global economies, promote sustainable development and environmental security, and strengthen quality public services.

Nurses will be joined by labor, environmental, non-governmental, and community activists who have made the push for a global FTT an international movement that has sparked the adoption of an FTT by more than a dozen nations, and prompted the European Commission to propose a global FTT which is expected to be a major topic at the G-20 summit.

The call for a FTT, sometimes called a “Robin Hood tax” (a form of such a tax was actually in place in the U.S. for most of the first half of the last century), has become a powerful force in Europe especially.

But a major stumbling block continues to be the opposition of the Obama administration, led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, who has personally lobbied European finance ministers to oppose an FTT despite the support for the proposal from ostensibly more conservative governments in Germany and France.

That’s one reason nurses from across the U.S. will hold a concurrent protest on November 3 on Geithner’s doorstep, with a protest outside the Treasury Department in Washington.

As the campaign for an FTT has mushroomed internationally, it remained under the radar in the U.S. until NNU helped rekindle the call for a tax on Wall Street transactions earlier this year.

NNU leaders, seeing the broadening decline in health status and living standards directly linked to the seemingly intractable economic calamity – from ailments linked to poor nutrition to patients rejecting needed medical care because of cost – reasoned that a tax on Wall Street could help raise the desperately needed revenue for such critical social needs as health care for all, jobs at living wages, full funding for quality public education, and a healthy environment.

Some major U.S. economists, and organizations including the AFL-CIO, Oxfam, Institute for Policy Studies, and Public Citizen have long supported implementation of a tax on Wall Street stocks, bonds, currencies, default swaps, and other major financial transactions that are now largely untaxed.

This past spring, NNU, with the support of labor and consumer allies, began a highly visible public campaign for the tax as a major way to make Wall Street begin to pay for reviving an economy that it crashed. They did so through reckless gambling with family mortgages, worker pensions and other misdeeds that were the prime cause of the 2008 crash and resulting crumbling conditions in Main Street communities with devastating consequences for the health and welfare of American families.

In June, NNU brought thousands of nurses and friends to the Washington headquarters of the Chamber of Commerce, Wall Street’s main lobbying arm, and to the New York Stock Exchange to sound the call for an FTT.

From July through mid-September, NNU members held multiple actions from coast to coast, including soup kitchens, health clinics, sit-ins, and street theater, culminating in a national day of action on September 1 with thousands of nurses calling on 60 Congressional offices in 21 states. NNU signs, urging “Tax Wall Street” become a highly visible banner throughout the nation.

It was just a few weeks later that tens of thousands of other Americans began their own form of protest against Wall Street’s excesses that became a prairie fire now forever known as Occupy Wall Street. Not coincidentally, many Occupy Wall Street protesters have also endorsed the call for a tax on Wall Street and the Canadian magazine Adbusters, an initiator of the proposal for the occupy protests, has also publicly urged enactment of an FTT.

Calls for an FTT now ring the airwaves, and can be found not just in obscure blogs, but in the columns of leading writers in all of the major U.S. media.

That’s one reason that reviews of a significant new book on the Obama White House, “Confidence Men” by Ron Suskind, routinely note that President Obama himself once leaned toward supporting an FTT but was dissuaded by his former top economic adviser, Larry Summers who, like Geithner, has a substantial, long term ties to Wall Street.

With the constellation of the occupy protests and the broad international movement for the FTT, the moment for achieving the tax, and the critical revenue it can provide to help revive struggling economies, has never been greater.

But only if all of us raise our voices demanding that the Obama administration support an FTT.

We need your voice as well. Join us on November 3 in Cannes or Washington D.C. Call the White House, 202-456-1111 and tell them to tax Wall Street financial transactions and get on the side of Main Street not Wall Street. Learn more about our campaign at www.mainstreetcontract.org.

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World leaders who gather for the G20 economic discussions in Cannes, France in early November will get fiscal advice from an unexpected group – nurses, who will prescribe the immediate application of a financial transaction tax for the economic health of communities everywhere.

Public Services International is working with the International Trade Union Confederation to stage a colourful action in Cannes where nurses will take symbolic emergency measures and inject an FTT to resuscitate the ailing global economy.

At the same time, global union leaders will deliver the "prescription" for a financial transactions tax directly to the current chair of the G20, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and other heads of state.

“That nurses are courageously taking their demand for a financial transactions tax to the G20 draws attention to the important role of healthcare workers in speaking out about the economic issues that affect both quality of care and working conditions,” says PSI General Secretary Peter Waldorff.

“It’s also an opportunity to highlight that women are among the hardest hit, through loss of jobs and the burden of increased unpaid labour in providing care, when public services are cut.”

The European Union has proposed a bloc-wide financial transactions tax on bond and stock trades to raise billions of euros a year. A global FTT would be most effective. It could fund basic health care for mothers and children, saving millions of lives. It could help tackle the economic downturn and strengthen quality public services, the basis of inclusive and caring societies.

PSI affiliate nurses and other healthcare members in Europe are invited to join a delegation from National Nurses United, and civil society allies, for this event in or near Cannes on 2 November.

The NNU, which has been leading the call in the US for a “Tax on Wall Street”, will also hold a major action in front of the US Treasury Department in Washington DC on 3 November.