A key California Democract caved yesterday, adopting most of the tenets of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's health care proposal--and subjecting patients to forced insurance, threats to seize wages to pay the premiums of the very for-profit insurance companies who are speedily wrecking our health care system, and no controls on the costs patients would be legally required to bear.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee said today that it will oppose the latest healthcare plan proposed by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.

"As more details continue to emerge, it is apparent that this proposal is riddled with flaws that could exacerbate the healthcare crisis for countless numbers of California families," said CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro.

More details below, or visit the online home of the Nationanl Nurses Organizing Committee and California Nurses Association, and join the fight for guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model.

Here's a look at the rest of the plan:

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More than SCHIP, the important action in the movement for guaranteed healthcare is happening in California, where the insurance industry almost pulled off the big scam, getting Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Speaker Fabian Nunez to cooperate on a plan forcing the sale of more expensive, unworkable insurance products--and blocking the guaranteed, single-payer reform this country needs.

Good news!  The Schwarzenegger-Nunez scam is dead!  This is a major victory for progressives, patients, and nurses.  The Dems have figured out how bad a deal Schwarzenegger is offering, and the plan's main cheerleader Nunez is near-dead politically by revelations that his wife is now on the hospital industry payroll to the tune of six figures, and that he is struggling with a nasty case of luxury shopaholism with donor money.

...cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association's Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

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Like a slow-motion earthquake the healthcare mess continues to roil the Golden State.  Just this week, California Governor pitches the lottery as his secret weapon for solving the healthcare crisis, Speaker Nunez makes clear why he has to keep taking so much money from health insurance corporations, and mega-chain Sutter Healthcare faces the largest nurses strike in a decade.

...cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association's Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

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Barbara Ehrenreich was channelling Mother Jones when she gave this advice to 1,000 nurse activists gathered in California this week, but she really didn't have to worry. Like her the nurses were channeling the famous labor leader, as the emotional gathering marked the true birth of a national nurses movement, whose women (and men) have made "elegant militancy" their calling card.  

We'll take a look at some of the glowing press coverage and consider the implications for the important healthcare battles in California and the nation after the flip.
...cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association's Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

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1000 Registered Nurses storming the Capitol and clogging its halls in one of the most dramatic and militant protests in recent history was not enough to stop Sacramento politicians from selling out patients and rewarding their insurance industry donors with a major financial boon, in the latest step of a complex healthcare dance orchestrated by and for Governor Schwarzenegger

We'll take a look at what it means for the drive for guaranteed healthcare nationally over the flip, but first take a look at these pictures from inside the Capitol this morning. 

...cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association's Breakroom Blog, as we organize to make 2007 the Year of GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

There's more...