They became a Chicago media sensation after they streamed into Chicago’s Daley Plaza on the morning of May 18, wearing the now familiar National Nurses United (NNU) red scrubs. Many of them had the green caps and masks you've seen in nearly every Robin Hood movie ever made. The NNU is the largest union of nurses in the USA and one of the more progressive unions in the AFL-CIO. In addition to improving working conditions for nurses, the NNU has taken on the role of trying to nurse our sick economy back to health.

The Eastern Maine Medical Center nurses contract fight is about more than just winning a good contract for our members. When a nurse has 16 hours of work to complete in a 12 hour period of time, her work can’t be left for tomorrow. This is the struggle our nurses face on a day-to-day basis. As patients come to us sicker, with more needs, and as responsibilities increase, staffing levels remain inadequate and uncertain.

One of the witnesses scheduled to testify during a U.S. Senate field hearing about collection tactics at Fairview Health Services offered a preview of her comments on Tuesday, May 29. Jean Ross said the collection issue surfaced when her grandson was being treated in 2010 at Fairview Ridges Hospital in Burnsville, after the 13-month-old boy had been rushed to the emergency room with what turned out to be an acute inflammation of the brain called encephalitis.

China, Mexico and other countries far less affluent are working to provide medical insurance for all citizens. It's viewed as an economic investment.

Family health insurance premiums in California went up 52 percent between 2003 and 2010 and now exceed 20 percent of income, according to a study released today.

Premium costs for family health insurance in California increased by 52% from 2003 to 2010 and consume a larger share of residents' income, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 11/17).

Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance have risen faster than incomes in every state in the nation, according to a report released Thursday. The analysis of federal data by the Commonwealth Fund, an independent research organization, shed new light on the state-by-state picture while essentially confirming a national trend, highlighted in other recent surveys of employer-sponsored insurance, of greater premiums for skimpier benefits.