Capping many months of campaigning across the U.S., nurses from National Nurses United (NNU) – the largest union of registered nurses in the country – brought their urgent message for a financial transaction tax (FTT) to Washington, D.C., today, rallying in front of the White House and Department of Treasury. —Press Release, 10/31/11 More »
The East Bay's nonprofit hospitals receive millions of dollars in tax breaks each year to care for the poor and uninsured, yet they provide only a fraction of local charity care, a Bay Area News Group analysis reveals. —Contra Costa Times, 10/23/11 More »
If you want to know just how bad things are for those hit hardest by the Great Recession, ask a nurse: They see more young men suffering heart attacks, more anxiety in children, and more ulcers and stomach illnesses in people of all ages. Financial struggles are forcing more patients to forgo necessary medicines and treatments. A Princeton/Georgia State study reports a 39 percent increase in ER admissions for suicide attempts precipitated by home foreclosures, and a direct correlation between foreclosure rates and increases in emergency-room visits and hospitalization for hypertension, diabetes and anxiety. —Washington Post, 10/04/11 More »
WASHINGTON - As the deficit reduction supercommittee hunts for $1.5 trillion in additional savings, US hospital executives are so worried about having their payments cut that they plan to start lobbying Congress next week to shift the burden onto their elderly patients - specifically by raising the age of eligibility for Medicare. —The Boston Globe, 09/30/11 More »
Boston - Reviving one of Beacon Hill’s oldest and most hard fought battles – whether to force hospitals to abide by nurse-to-patient staffing levels –nurses cautioned lawmakers Tuesday that they’ve left the care of their constituents at risk by failing to pass a staffing law, and the state’s top hospital official calling mandated staffing requirements a “terrible idea” that would represent a step backwards in the fast-changing health care field. —State House News Service, 09/27/11 More »
HYANNIS — Massachusetts hospitals need more nurses, not more nurses working overtime, health care advocates said Monday at a press conference near Cape Cod Hospital. —CapeCod Online, 09/27/11 More »
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Authorities were investigating the death of a patient who was given a "non-prescribed dosage" of a medical drug by a replacement hired when thousands of nurses went on strike across California, an Oakland police spokeswoman said Sunday. —Associated Press, 09/25/11 More »
OAKLAND, Calif. -- Police were investigating the death of an East Bay patient Saturday morning that hospital officials say was fatally dosed with an unknown medication by a replacement nurse brought in from out-of-state during a recent nurse strike. —KTVU, 09/25/11 More »
A patient's death at Oakland's Alta Bates Summit Medical Center has sparked out cry by nurses who have been locked out of work since they hit the picket lines for a one day strike Thursday. —NBC BAY AREA, 09/25/11 More »
A replacement nurse at an Oakland hospital committed a "medical error" while administering a dosage of medication to a cancer patient leading to her death early Saturday morning, police and hospital officials said. —Contra Costa Times, 09/24/11 More »
San Francisco - Over 1,000 registered nurses from all over the U.S. rallied in San Francisco on September 15 near the Federal Reserve Bank in an effort to step up the campaign to place a tax on Wall Street. —The Digital Journal, 09/16/11 More »
Some 1,000 registered nurses from across the U.S. will rally in San Francisco Thursday across from the Federal Reserve Bank to step up the campaign to tax Wall Street financial speculation to fund a recovery program for the economic crisis slamming Main Street communities. —Press Release, 09/15/11 More »
Members of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United and their backers rallied September 1, at the congressional offices of Democrats and Republicans in 21 states across America for a 0.5 percent federal tax on big financial transactions to raise $350 billion annually to fund jobs, health care and schools. The tax would apply to stocks, securities, debt purchases, options, credit swaps, foreign currency bets and derivatives only, according to the CNA/NNU. —Sacramento News and Review, 09/08/11 More »
Last Thursday, Sept. 1, a group of nurses demonstrated at Rep. Wally Herger’s office at 11 a.m. and then, from noon to 1 p.m., set up a “soup kitchen”—actually, they served Mexican food—in City Plaza. They were among some 10,000 members of the National Nurses Union who mounted similar actions that day in 61 congressional districts as part of their Main Street Campaign. —Chico News and Review, 09/08/11 More »
This Labor Day, the task was not so much how to assess labor's status as to address this question: What on earth happened? —Washington Times, 09/07/11 More »
President Obama is right: the United States needs a jobs program that spends federal tax dollars to retain jobs, to create jobs and to put tens of millions of Americans back to work. —The Nation, 08/31/11 More »
Elizabeth Warren's all-but-announced candidacy for the Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat once held by Edward Kennedy is a state-based campaign. But it has national implications. —The Nation, 08/26/11 More »
A Denver mother whose son died after she was unable to fill his multiple prescriptions because pharmacists kept telling her he was not eligible for Medicaid — even though records proved he was — has filed a lawsuit against the city and county of Denver. —Denver Post, 08/11/11 More »
If America truly is serious about dealing with its deficit problems, there's a fairly simple solution. But you're probably not going to like it: Enact a single-payer health care plan. —St. Louis Today (stltoday.com), 08/10/11 More »
Confidence shot. Tempers up. Patience spent. This economy has Americans feeling cooked. It had been one bummer of a summer, conservatives and liberals agreed, even before the news late Friday that Standard & Poor’s reduced the nation’s top credit rating from AAA to AA-plus. The previous day, after a federal debt deal averted government default, the European credit crisis and fears of a double-dip U.S. recession crashed the Dow anyway — erasing all gains of 2011. —Kansas City Star, 08/06/11 More »
