Do you wish that your nurse had a gag order preventing her from speaking up on behalf of patients?  Should RNs be fired for reporting on hospital safety errors?  What about prosecuted for blowing the whistle on quack doctors or heartless healthcare corporations? 

Unfortunately this is exactly what too many hospitals are trying to do in our nation today.  While the healthcare bill may have passed, there remain life and death patient safety and care issues that we as a nation need to address. 

If you are a supporter of America’s nurses, please read what we’re talking about, below, and then offer your solidarity with RNs. We believe this story will outrage you.

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The most fundamental rule in medicine is, first, do no harm.

Passage of this bill, as its now written, will be a total train wreck for the Democratic Party.

Back in February, 59% of Americans supported single-payer in a CBS/times poll where the public option got 70+% approval. This bill has neither and now the public opposes the plan by a ratio of 47 to 32 percent. And they haven't even been handed the bill for it yet.

And they haven't even had their premiums skyrocket yet.

And they haven't even seen insurance corporation executives buy small countries for use as second homes with the increased compensation they will be floating in.

And they haven't even found out what this does to their Medicare yet.

And they haven't even seen the impact on the national debt yet.

And they haven't even realized that the `good' parts of the bill don't go into effect until FOUR YEARS from now.

You know, elite Republicans may be sociopaths, and they may be lower on the moral totem pole than your basic cannibal, but they're not stupid. I bet they're salivating at the idea that this thing passes.

They must be laughing their asses off at this gift. All they have to do is oppose it right down the line, then say "Told ya so!" at the next election.

But as John Nicols writes in the Nation'.

Want to know what's wrong -- really wrong -- with the health-care "reform" bill being pushed through the Senate by Majority Leader Harry Reid?

Ask a nurse.

Maybe Union nurses can save us from this preventable cancer.

Leaders of three major nurses organizations that have recently come together to form the largest registered nurses union and professional association in U.S. history announced that they will oppose the Senate bill.

http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/in -the-news/2009/december/nation-s-largest -rn-organization-says-healthcare-bill-ce des-too-much-to-insurance-industry.html

Nation's Largest RN Organization Says Healthcare Bill Cedes Too Much to Insurance Industry

By National Nurses United

December 21, 2009

The 150,000 member National Nurses United, the nation's largest union and professional organization of registered nurses in the U.S., today criticized the healthcare bill now advancing in the U.S. Senate saying it is deeply flawed and grants too much power to the giant insurers.

"It is tragic to see the promise from Washington this year for genuine, comprehensive reform ground down to a seriously flawed bill that could actually exacerbate the healthcare crisis and financial insecurity for American families, and that cedes far too much additional power to the tyranny of a callous insurance industry," said NNU co-president Karen Higgins, RN.

NNU Co-president Deborah Burger, RN challenged arguments of legislation proponents that the bill should still be passed because of expanded coverage, new regulations on insurers, and the hope that it will be improved in the House-Senate conference committee or future years.

"Those wishful statements ignore the reality that much of the expanded coverage is based on forced purchase of private insurance without effective controls on industry pricing practices or real competition and gaping loopholes in the insurance reforms," said Burger.

Further, said NNU Co-president Jean Ross, RN, "the bill seems more likely to be eroded, not improved, in future years due to the unchecked influence of the healthcare industry lobbyists and the lessons of this year in which all the compromises have been made to the right."

"Sadly, we have ended up with legislation that fails to meet the test of true healthcare reform, guaranteeing high quality, cost effective care for all Americans, and instead are further locking into place a system that entrenches the chokehold of the profit-making insurance giants on our health. If this bill passes, the industry will become more powerful and could be beyond the reach of reform for generations," Higgins said. "Sadly," adds Higgins, "we have ended up with legislation that fails to meet the test of true health-care reform, guaranteeing high quality, cost effective care for all Americans, and instead are further locking into place a system that entrenches the choke-hold of the profit-making insurance giants on our health. If this bill passes, the industry will become more powerful and could be beyond the reach of reform for generations."

Further, the nurses list, in detail, the ten fundamental flaws that the Nurses' Union cites in this bill.

NNU cited ten significant problems in the legislation, noting many of the same flaws also exist in the House version and are likely to remain in the bill that emerges from the House-Senate reconciliation process:

  1. The individual mandate forcing all those without coverage to buy private insurance, with insufficient cost controls on skyrocketing premiums and other insurance costs.

  2. No challenge to insurance company monopolies, especially in the top 94 metropolitan areas where one or two companies dominate, severely limiting choice and competition.

  3. An affordability mirage. Congressional Budget Office estimates say a family of four with a household income of $54,000 would be expected to pay 17 percent of their income, $9,000, on healthcare exposing too many families to grave financial risk.

  4. The excise tax on comprehensive insurance plans which will encourage employers to reduce benefits, shift more costs to employees, promote proliferation of high-deductible plans, and lead to more self-rationing of care and medical bankruptcies, especially as more plans are subject to the tax every year due to the lack of adequate price controls. A Towers-Perrin survey in September found 30 percent of employers said they would reduce employment if their health costs go up, 86 percent said they'd pass the higher costs to their employees.

  5. Major loopholes in the insurance reforms that promise bans on exclusion for pre-existing conditions, and no cancellations for sickness. The loopholes include:

         * Provisions permitting insurers and companies to more than double charges to employees who fail "wellness" programs because they have diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol readings, or other medical conditions.
          * Insurers are permitted to sell policies "across state lines", exempting patient protections passed in other states. Insurers will thus set up in the least regulated states in a race to the bottom threatening public protections won by consumers in various states.
          * Insurers can charge four times more based on age plus more for certain conditions, and continue to use marketing techniques to cherry-pick healthier, less costly enrollees.
          * Insurers may continue to rescind policies for "fraud or intentional misrepresentation" - the main pretext insurance companies now use to cancel coverage.

  6. Minimal oversight on insurance denials of care; a report by the California Nurses Association/NNOC in September found that six of California's largest insurers have rejected more than one-fifth of all claims since 2002.

  7. Inadequate limits on drug prices, especially after Senate rejection of an amendment, to protect a White House deal with pharmaceutical giants, allowing pharmacies and wholesalers to import lower-cost drugs.

  8. New burdens for our public safety net. With a shortage of primary care physicians and a continuing fiscal crisis at the state and local level, public hospitals and clinics will be a dumping ground for those the private system doesn't want.

  9. Reduced reproductive rights for women.

 10. No single standard of care. Our multi-tiered system remains with access to care still determined by ability to pay. Nothing changes in basic structure of the system; healthcare remains a privilege, not a right.

"Desperation to pass a bill, regardless of its flaws, has made the White House and Congress subject to the worst political extortion and new, crippling concessions every day," Burger said.

"NNU and nurses will continue to work with the thousands of grassroots activists across the nation to campaign for the best reform, which would be to expand Medicare to cover everyone, the same type of system working more effectively in every other industrial country. The day of that reform will come," said Ross. ...

Do even the bullying fanboys dare to insult these good nurses?

Would any of the parties to this disgraceful bill call the members of the National Nurses Unions spiteful names too?

Not likely.

This statement by the nurses should be shared with any of your undecided friends or family members.

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National Union of RNs is Founded!

Below David Welch, an RN from Chico California, gives his first-person account of traveling to Phoenix for the historic duty of founding the nation's first union of, by, and for RNs.

You can read a good Reuters overview here and see the release here.

This is a great day for labor, as we have a progressive/rapidly-growing/important new union in a key industry and social issue....with a clear plan to organize further.  

On to David...

I'm writing from Phoenix Arizona where I just spent the morning with hundreds of nurses from around the country  finalizing the creation of the new nurses union that will transform health care in America: National Nurses United.  Nurses and leaders from The California Nurses Assn./National Nurses Organizing Committee, the United American Nurses and the Massachusetts Nurses Assn are meeting to create a new union that will stretch from coast to coast and unite 150,000 nurses into a powerful force for our profession and our patients.

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It's time to stop talking about make believe death panels, and talk about the real ones.

Six of California's biggest insurance companies have rejected more than one in five claims the past seven years -- according to data the insurance giants, Blue Cross, PacifiCare, Kaiser Permanente, Health Net, Cigna, and Aetna report to the state Department of Managed Care.

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Yesterday I was excited to announce that the SEIU California State Council has endorsed me in my race to represent California's 10th Congressional District, a Northern California district encompassing parts of Contra Costa, Solano, Alameda, and Sacramento counties. With 700,000 members, SEIU is the largest labor union in California, and their ranks include a broad cross-section of working Californians, including social workers, nurses, classroom aides, security officers, college professors, homecare workers, janitors, and more.

Why I'm motivated to lead on single-payer health care, the Employee Free Choice Act, and green-collar jobs over the flip...

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