Nunez Forced to Recuse Himself from ALL Healthcare Votes??

In a stunning turn, it appears that Speaker Fabian Nunez must recuse himself from any votes on healthcare legislations-including any attempts to revive AB 8, the healthcare bill that Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed this month.

The Sacramento Bee reported this morning that Maria Robles, the wife of Fabian Nunez, has accepted a six-figure salary with Californians for Patient Care, a front group for the hospital industry that receives approximately 99% of its funding from the California Hospital Association.

We’ll take a look at this, and more from the drive for guaranteed, single-payer healthcare…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.

Nuñez has already established a precedent for abstaining on issues affecting another of his wife’s employers. In 2006, Robles accepted a six-figure salary to work as a consultant for the South Coast Air Quality Management District.  As a result, Nuñez pledged not to vote on legislation that affected them that year.

Under California law, “no member of the legislature shall… receive or agree to receive, directly or indirectly, any compensation, reward or gift from any source, except the State of California” with very limited exceptions for certain speech fees and expense reimbursements (California Government Code 8920). This broad provision covers a spouse’s income, as Nunez’ prior actions with the Air Quality Management District demonstrate. Additionally, the law specifies that no legislator shall “participate, by voting or any other action, on the floor of either house, in committee, or elsewhere, in the passage or defeat of legislation in which he has a personal interest.”
I don’t have the penalties at hand for violating this law-add them in the comments if you, please.

But does this mean AB 8 is dead?  Has the insurance industry failed in their attempts to create a “forced market” for their products?

Interestingly, this couldn’t happen at a better time.  It appears that the coalitions of Sacramento insiders pushing the grand Nunez-Schwarzenegger compromise may be breaking apart.  Fabian’s backers are now apparently on the warpath against Arnold.  They’ve hired consultant Chris Lehane, a true-blue Democrat and Clinton/Gore/Clinton operative who has no interest in polishing Arnold’s resume as he heads into the possible 2010 showdown against Boxer.

Of course who knows what’s going to happen? Nunez’ wife is working for Arnold’s plan, and his allies are working against it. 

Meanwhile, Al Gore comes out swinging for single-payer healthcare, in a new Current video.  Go Al!

I strongly support universal, single-payer, government-provided-or, government-funded-healthcare….I think it ought to be a matter of right and our current system just doesn’t work, its way too expensive….And I think that to eliminate the incredibly ridiculous cost of all this unnecessary paperwork and different standards for different companies, it is time to have universal health insurance.

And check out the video of these beautiful, powerful, activist nurses on strike against Sutter.

Finally, superstar columnist David Lazarus continues his advocacy on behalf of single-payer healthcare.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

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.

A picture beats a thousands words, so just go look at this striking nurse.  Sutter was humiliated this week when 5,000 nurses walked off the job in a revolt against patterns of unsafe care by the chain, which pulled in $587 million in profits just last year.  RNs like Millicent Borland walked out because they are obligated to stand up for their patients. 

Heck-go check out all the pictures of the nurses.  At a dozen facilities, thousands of nurses partied, chanted, fought, and helped give new momentum to the labor movement and the healthcare movement in this incredibly important showdown.  If California nurses can clean up chains out here, patients across the country will get better care as a result.

Sutter responded today by locking out thousands of nurses trying to return to work after the strike.  Unfortunately for Sutter, the more they disrespect, disparage, and attack their nurses-the more momentum Millicent and her RN colleagues will have in their patient and social activism.

Meanwhile, tough times for Sutter’s ally Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He finally coughed up a plan to fund his plan to force Californians to purchase private and unreliable health insurance products.  Arnold’s brainstorm: a lottery!  On the one hand it makes sense, because he’s gambling with patient health.  On the other hand, what he’s really doing is cutting education funds to subsidize his corporate insurance donors, and that’s just not right.

Arnold is negotiating with his ally, Speaker Fabian Nunez, to come up with a plan that will be acceptable to both the Republican and Democratic wings of the insurance lobby.  And nowwe know why Speaker Nunez is so desperate to stay in the good graces of his insurance industry donors…he’s a shopaholic:

of Núñez’s expenses – covered by campaign funds – include $8,745 at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona, Spain; $5,149 for a meeting at a wine seller in France’s Bordeaux region; and $2,562 for office expenses at Louis Vuitton, a Parisian store that specializes in leather goods, clothing, fashion accessories and jewelry, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Sounds like we need him outta the mall and off the insurance industry payroll.

Finally…A new story finds that even kids with private insurance aren’t getting the care they need.  The tribulations of the Frost family make clear why we need guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model, although unfortunately the leading Democratic presidential candidates all seem to have given up hope for that.  Maybe they should take a look at Taiwan, which has given itself a tremendous economic boost by moving to a single-payer system…based on U.S. Medicare!

Thousands of RNs represented by the California Nurses Association will walk off the job October 10 through 12 in a strike against the mammoth Sutter Healthcare Corporation.  This is the largest strike by nurses in this country for at least a decade and the stakes are high.

This Sutter strike affects 5,500 nurses at 16 different facilities.  But it also affects each and every one of us.  Nurses are walking the picket line for the dream of better health care in this country.  Don’t take it from me-listen to the striking nurses in their own words in this video.

You know how you read stories about people victimized by the healthcare industry-[ http://juliepierce-s… say Julie Pierce]-and your eyes tear up and your heart gets heavy?  Registered nurses are on the front line of this crisis every single day and live these stories every day…watching innocent people die because their insurance claim was denied, because they couldn’t afford insurance mark-ups, because they didn’t get preventative medicine.

Sutter Healthcare is the “poster child” for cruel hospital chains.  They have figured out the scam…maximize hospital profits by slashing patient care to the bone.  Sutter takes literally hundreds of millions of dollars of profits out of the healthcare system each year.  Sutter shut down community hospitals that don’t achieve their profit margin-i.e., those serving sub-premium patients, who are sometimes known as poor people.

One of Sutter’s favorite ways to deny care for profit is by routine understaffing of their nurses.  Study after study has shown that nurse staffing is directly tied to patient mortality…if you leave patients alone in a bed, bad things happen to them.  If you make sure patients have access to nursing care, good things happen to them.

Unfortunately, at Sutter, patients are ringing their call button and there is just no nurse on shift to care for them.

That’s deadly for the patients-and heartbreaking for the nurses.  Jan Rodolfo, a pediatric oncology RN at Summit Hospital in Oakland, put it this way: “We are deeply concerned about the quality of care and the availability of patient services in communities that have long supported Sutter hospitals.  Inadequate staffing is a persistent problem at Sutter facilities. No one understands what staffing we need to provide safe patient care better than bedside nurses.”

Other hospital chains are not abusive this way.  Other hospital chains listen to their nurses and write patient safety into the contract.  But not Sutter, and 6,000 nurses have had enough and won’t take it anymore. 

You can help.  Call Sutter’s CEO Pat Fry and tell him you support the nurses-and safe care for all their patients: 916-286-6752.

And just in case you think that a major nurses strike will slow down our national advocacy on behalf of single-payer healthcare….Don’t worry.

…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.

The UAW’s strike against GM is not just about their members’ healthcare…but also about the healthcare of millions of people not represented by a powerful union.  We’ll look at the potential impact of this historic strike and what it means for workers and the nation that is healthcare increasingly becoming the central issue for labor, both in bargaining and activism…

…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.

You probably know that the UAW has called a national strike against GM.  This is the first auto strike since 1976, the first strike against GM since 1970…and the first strike since the AFL endorse a “Medicare for All” style guaranteed healthcare plan.

And what are they fighting for?

G.M., in return, had pushed for the creation of a trust that would assume responsibility for its $55 billion liability for health care benefits for workers, retirees and their families….Union officials criticized G.M. for continuing to pay bonus compensation to its executives, while pressing U.A.W. members to make concessions.

No one keeps the stats, but about 90 percent of strikes are caused by the issue of healthcare.  The labor movement remains at the heart of the movement to protect and expand access to healthcare for all people, while employers are looking to get out of the healthcare field.  It is cruel and short-sighted of employers to just want to drop benefits rather than look for solutions that are in everbody’s interests.  Don’t take my word for it.  Ask GM Canada:

Just two years ago, GM Canada’s CEO Michael Grimaldi sent a letter co-signed by Canadian Autoworkers Union president Buzz Hargrave to a Crown Commission considering reforms of Canada’s 35-year-old national health program that said, “The public healthcare system significantly reduces total labour costs for automobile manufacturing firms, compared to their cost of equivalent private insurance services purchased by U.S.-based automakers.” That letter also said it was “vitally important that the publicly funded healthcare system be preserved and renewed, on the existing principles of universality, accessibility, portability, comprehensiveness and public administration,” and went on to call not just for preservation but for an “updated range of services.” CEOs of the Canadian units of Ford and DaimlerChrysler wrote similar encomiums endorsing the national health system.

And guess what?  It’s only going to get worse.  Just like GM will try to dump their U.S. employees out of the healthcare system, and end their own interest in solving the healthcare crisis, many of the healthcare reform proposals being floated by politicians will encourage the same thing to happen. 

Let’s look at the emerging deal between Schwarzenegger and the legislature in California:

Employers spend between 12% and 15% of payroll on average for health care, and CNA fears either the 4% or 7.5% plan would encourage them to move to high-deductible insurance policies with limited services, Communications Director Chuck Idelson said.

“If you think we have a lot of labor strife now over health-care benefits, wait until this plan goes into effect,” Idelson said of the Democratic bill.

Unlike employers, labor unions, however, won’t give up the fight for guaranteed healthcare.  Why?  Because more and more employers think of Medicaid and charity care as their health benefit.  And now even healthcare workers are in danger of losing their healthcare. 

Strikes like the UAW’s will help us build momentum for guaranteed, single-payer healthcare-and force corporations to really grapple with the crisis.  The rapid unionization of America’s RNs will also provide the movement with a committed, organized, knowledgable group of activists who are personally committed to improving patient care. 

As UAW is standing up to GM, California’s nurses will take the lead in standing up to the fake healthcare reform bill that is being pushed by a “coalition of the willing” Sacramento insiders.  Healthcare hero Sen. Sheila Kuehl, author of the groundbreaking single-payer bill SB 840, gives an update on the strategy:

  “I continue to believe that the movement that’s been building for single payer, a movement that has seen support for a single payer universal health care system more than double over the last six months alone, will continue to build in ’08 in’09 in 2010,” Kuehl said. “Then, with a new governor, perhaps there might finally be a chance to get a signature on the bill that is actually the best solution for businesses, for employees, and for all the people in California. Because if you take the insurance companies out of the system, and they are the only entity that adds no value at all to the provision of health care, the overall costs for health care in California drop $19 billion in the first year alone, simply because we’re finally not paying their inflated overhead and profit.” 

And finally, Zenei Cortez, RN, a member of the Council of Presidents of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee issued the following statement on the UAW strike:

America’s registered nurses recognize that the UAW is standing up not just for their own healthcare-but for the healthcare of all our patients.  The California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee strongly supports their efforts, and will continue to work to see guaranteed healthcare won for autoworkers and everyone else in this nation.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

Whatever you do don’t be ladylike:

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.

Here’s the deal: NNOC/CNA is the fastest-growing union in America, and we are dedicated to improving patient care with the kind of guaranteed, single-payer healthcare succeeding in nearly every other industrialized democracy.  In order to make that happen we aim to continue our rapid expansion, and nurses around the country are responding to our themes of patient care and nurse activism, and joining the union. 

In the words of Barbara Ehrenreich:

“Registered nurses have got to be at the forefront of the struggle for a just and egalitarian healthcare system in this country for the simple reason that you are the last generalists in the healthcare field…as well as the strongest, boldest, loudest voice for genuine healthcare reform in this country today.”

Unfortunately, RNs have never had a say at the national level, or any kind of real representation.  That’s why NNOC/CNA’s rapid growth is so important.  Over the last ten years, we’ve grown 350%.  Since 1992, we’ve gone from 17,000 members in California alone to 75,000 members in all 50 states, with nurses now active in numerous healthcare struggles, as well as sponsoring the key single-payer bills.

That’s why Media News Group says,

When the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee opens its convention today in Sacramento, it’ll do so as a darling of the national labor movement.

At a time when labor unions seem to be on the ropes …the CNA/NNOC’s explosive growth seems almost miraculous.
How’d this happen?
“We stopped looking at our role as patient advocates solely at the bedside,” CNA president Deborah Burger RN said Friday. “We’re patient advocates for the entire society, for the community as a whole. 

The LA Times suggests the impressive organizing success fuels the guaranteed healthcare movement:

From intensive care wards to the halls of Congress, they’re exerting growing influence over hospital practices and patient treatment. With the clout they’ve gained through unionization, they’ve raised their incomes and their profession’s profile.

Now they’re lobbying for a radical change to the country’s healthcare system, starting in California.

On Monday, hundreds of members of the California Nurses Assn. marched on the Capitol in Sacramento and pledged to continue to campaign for universal healthcare coverage.

The nurses actually marched *into* the Capitol Monday to protest an insurance-industry-friendly fake healthcare reform proposal, with 1000 nurses participating in the kind of dramatic protest not seen there in recent years.  Pics here.  One reporter called them “militants in tennis shoes.”

Why are we fighting so hard?  Because the insurance industry is about to see a bill passed in California that purports to reform healthcare but will in fact only entrench the failed, for-profit insurance companies right in the heart of our healthcare service. 

It is a concept that has to end here.  Governor Arnold and Assembly Speaker Nunez have between them taken almost $1 million from the insurance industry.  As a result, they’ve set the terms of the debate thus: should employers be forced to purchase expensive, wasterful, corporate health insurance for their employees or should individuals be forced to purchase it on their own?  The problem is neither choice is successful, and each will only delay the arrival of genuine healthcare reform.  We know how to fix this mess; we just need the political will.

The good news?  We’ve likely going to the ballot.  The public trusts nurses, likes unions, and looks to nurse unions for leadership on healthcare questions.  Our polling shows that the legislature’s “healthcare reform plan,” AB 8, starts at 49% support, but drops to just 25% when the public finds out nurses are opposed to it.  We led the defeat of Arnold’s anti-worker ballot measures in 2005 and we’ll do the same thing in 2008.

We’ll still have a healthcare crisis once the fake-reform ballot measure is defeated.  But we will have put the insurance industry in their place, taught politicians they need to grow spines, and further built the national movements of nurses and patients…setting the stage for day we can end the unnecessary pain and suffering inflicted on millions of patients by this cruel, broken system.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

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.

The inside-the-Capitol rally was amazing.  While the Democratic leaders of the Assembly and the Senate voted to keep the health insurance companies in the business of profiting from care, a beautiful sea of hands-on caregivers chanted in the hallways, their pleas bouncing off the walls and permeating the entire building.  “Don’t sell out our patients! Single-payer now!”

But for today it wasn’t enough.  Here’s the deal: because they had to do “something” the California Senate just voted to send Governor Arnold a pro-insurance faux healthcare reform bill that nurses and healthcare activists have been trying hard to kill. 

Arnold will veto it–despite the fact that it is based on and basically similar to his own proposal.  Each bill will send more patients to the insurance industry, giving them more revenue and influence over medical decisions…meaning each bill will expose more patients to runaway costs, and force them to beg for healthcare from corporations that make money by denying it.

Here’s the good news: After vetoing the Senate’s bad bill, Arnold will call a special session to push his own bad bill, the next step in the process he’s choreographing.  This will give nurses and patients one more chance to convince politicians to do the right thing…and fix the healthcare crisis by getting rid of the insurance companies

Healthcare hero Sheila Kuehl explained her opposition to both versions of the insurance-centered bill:

Senator Kuehl’s statement in opposing AB 8 was generous in her praise for those who had worked on the bill and their improvements to it. But in the end, she told the Senate that she had learned of the problems caused by any approach that retains insurance. She said that, “For those of you who vote for the bill, I understand you are voting your hopes, knowing it will be vetoed by the Governor.”
Using the analogy of the Titanic for the current health care system, she said she had criticized some measures as rearranging the deck chairs, but that there has been a real attempt in AB 8 to “turn the direction of the ship.” But she said the Titanic was sunk because the ship had tried to turn rather than “facing the iceberg head on” which would have at least kept it afloat longer and saved more lives. I have no idea of the facts about the Titanic, but she made her point.

A former legislator-turned-progressive activist, Hannah-Beth Jackson, summarized the problems with both the Schwarzenegger and legislature’s approaches:

Schwarzenegger is insisting that everyone have health insurance. This is NOT universal healthcare, it is universal insurance- whether people can afford it or not. This deference to the insurance industry is maddening for those who realize the private companies are a major part of the problem and need to come out of the equation completely.

What does it mean nationally?  If the insurance industry can write the rules for healthcare reform in California, they can in many other states around the country as well.  We have to block it here.

Just for fun, here’s an article from this morning calling the California Nurses Association, the “darlings of the national labor movement.”

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

Speaker Fabian Nunez went to the LA Times editorial board last week to tell them about the big plans he and Arnold Schwarzenegger are dreaming up: to take their hasty, half-cooked, gift-to-the-insurance-industry-masquerading-as-a-healthcare-reform-plan straight to the voters as a ballot initiative next year.

Not so fast.  A new poll release today by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee finds considerable unease among the California public over the Schwarzenegger-Nunez plan.  Voters don’t want a bad bill just for the sake of having a bill; they don’t want a bill born from a dirty political deal; and they don’t want a bill that simply won’t work.  All of which adds up to trouble for the healthcare deal currently known as AB 8.  It would likely start out under 50% in the polls, and face an uphill struggle that would only get harder as voters learn about the opposition from the state’s nurses and healthcare activists.

The tragedy here is that these politicians are playing games while we have a historic opportunity to rid our healthcare system of the insurance industry that is poisoning it.  Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s SB 840 is based on the very systems that are succeeding in every other industrialized democracy in the world. 

This is a high-stakes issue not just for patients in California, but also for the future direction of the movement for healthcare reform around the country.  Fortunately, voters have smelled the rat.…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.

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner surveyed 700 voters on behalf of the California Nurses Association about the Schwarzenegger-Nunez healthcare plan.  The toplines:

More than two-thirds of California voters – a margin of 68 percent to 25 percent – said they prefer “making sure we pass healthcare reform that gets it right and improves the system, and not take the risk of passing bad legislation.”

More worrisome for the prospects of a ballot initiative:

In the Greenberg Quinlan poll, when provided a favorable description of AB 8, a plurality, but not a majority, of voters said they supported the bill, by a 49-40 percent.
But once voters were told of serious flaws in the bill, opposition rose to 50 percent while support fell to just 35 percent. And, when told it was opposed by nurses, opposition climbed further to 57 percent while support fell to just 25 percent.

Any ballot initiative that starts under 55% support is likely to lose.  But if voters had the option of voting for real reform, things might be different:

By contrast, by a huge margin of 70 percent to 21 percent, voters said they would be willing to pay more for a health plan that covered everyone, had no co-pays or deductibles, wasn’t attached to one’s job, and guaranteed choice of doctor or hospital. That’s the approach reflected in Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s SB 840 single-payer bill.
Further, that approach won support among voters across political lines, by Democrats, 77-13 percent; independents, 72-20 percent; and Republicans 60-32 percent.

And, of course, ethical concerns are key here:

Two-thirds of the voters, 67 percent, said they would have a less favorable opinion of their legislator if they learned he or she was supporting AB 8 “for political reasons” to seek Gov. Schwarzenegger’s backing for the term limits initiative, to 15 percent who said they would have a more favorable opinion.

In case you missed the LA Times story Saturday about the grand Nunez-Scwharzenegger deal here it is:

“I think we’re on the verge of doing something huge,” Nuñez told The Times’ editorial board Friday.

The plan would require all Californians to have insurance and would give subsidies to those unable to afford coverage. It would also address the problems of the private insurance market

In other words, Californians would be driven into the arms of the for-profit insurance industry exposed in Sicko.  And despite the line above, there is no way to make this equation affordable-as the Massachusetts mandate mess made clear.

And don’t miss healthcare hero Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s explanation for why magical thinking won’t fix our healthcare mess.

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.

Do not underestimate the power of the labor movement’s recent endorsement of a “Medicare for all,” guaranteed healthcare system…this labor day the AFL CIO will work to turn its 10 million members into 10 million healthcare activists.  Yep, that’s a lot of folks…and they can have a huge impact.  They’ll be joined by the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.  We’ll take a look at this below, along with the burgeoning healthcare CREDIT crisis, the new healthcare census data, and the good news from California as Schwarzencare is on life support…The national fight for healthcare is heating up, just as we appear to be blocking the insurance industry proposals flying around Sacramento.

…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.

10 million organized advocates is just what this healthcare crisis needs.  From the AFL:

We are ready to act on our belief that in America, no one should go without health care.

And yes, it will continue into 2008:

Americans are ready for real change, and union members will make the 2008 elections a mandate on health care. We will hold candidates for office at every level accountable to progressive reform and elect a president and a Congress pledged to get the job done.

Joining this campaign are nurses from across the country, through the NNOC/CNA:

“Polls show that healthcare is the top domestic priority for Americans with more and more families struggling with health insecurity and fears for the future,” noted CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, a national Vice President of the AFL-CIO and a member of its Healthcare Reform Policy Committee.

CNA/NNOC, DeMoro said, “will work actively with other AFL-CIO unions on the campaign and press the issue with legislators and with the 2008 Presidential and Congressional candidates. CNA/NNOC recently ran a series of ads in Iowa, urging top Democrats to support a Medicare for all approach, which the Washington Post called one of the “winners” of a recent Democratic debate in Iowa.

Meanwhile, a new Kaiser Family Foundation reinforces the point that voters want genuine healthcare reform, now.

The New York Times reminds us why we fight:

millions of consumers have arranged financing through more than 100,000 doctors and dentists that offer a year or more of interest-free monthly payments…as the price of health care continues to rise and big lenders pursue new areas for growth, this type of medical financing has become one of the fastest-growing parts of consumer credit, led by lending giants like Capital One and Citigroup and the CareCredit unit of General Electric.

Good news!  Schwarzencare in California is wounded and dying…denying insurance companies the chance to seek their talons deeper into our medical system.  In the words of healthcare hero Sen. Sheila Kuehl:

While the governor and Democratic leaders insist they want a deal on health care, one lawmaker has concluded that failure might be the best option.  “I hope that none of these ill-conceived, quickly thrown together plans will pass this year,” said state Sen. Sheila Kuehl, the Santa Monica Democrat who chairs the Senate Health Committee and advocates a single-payer system. “Because really, that is not good for California.”

And the Sac Bee notes that the more Schwarzenegger and other politicians hustle for their insurance industry donors…the more voters support guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other political leaders have been telling Californians for the past eight months that the state’s health care delivery system is broken….A new statewide poll indicates that the message has resonated strongly, but ironically, voters aren’t embracing the relatively moderate approaches that Schwarzenegger and Democratic legislative leaders propose and are leaning, instead, toward a state-managed “single-payer” system that he has rejected. 

To join the fight for guaranteed healthcare (with a “Medicare for All” or SinglePayer financing), visit GuaranteedHealthcare.org, a project of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.