RN Amy Bowen just returned from a week in Houston and Beaumont. Amy talks about how she and her fellow nurses from the Registered Nurse Response Network worked side by side with local medical professionals, who were also volunteering—to give aid to those in need.
RNRN nurse volunteers spent two weeks in Puerto Rico advocating for residents to receive the most basic of care: clean water, food, shelter, medicine. Where was our government?
Blue Shield of California today announced a 60-day reprieve in an unconscionable rate hike of up to 59 percent it intends to foist on individuals and families. The announcement coincided with announced plans by nurses, patients, and consumer advocates who stormed Blue Shield's posh California corporate headquarters in downtown San Francisco.
It has been a challenging week for many people. While our elected officials have been broadly reported to be at odds about exactly how to raise the debt ceiling or not, millions of Americans have no work, are running out of ways to keep their homes – rented or owned, and struggle even to keep the basic necessities for themselves and their families.
Just think how drastically your nursing practice would change for the worse if your patients’ caregivers or family members were allowed to give them medications in the hospital? That is just one of many recent changes proposed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid as conditions of participation.
Take a look at the key parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court on June 28, 2012, and where the law falls short.
The shameless spectacle of billionaires drowning the airwaves should not numb us to the consequences of what is at stake if the super rich succeed in buying our elections. While most of the national focus is on the Presidential race and some high profile Senate elections, the less profiled California ballot measures provide a disturbing portrait of what is a clearly broken system.
Still, a report released by the International Federation of Health Plans (i.e., health insurance companies) today provides a striking reminder of just how much more expensive health care is for Americans.
