Nurses from Nevada and around the country  continued rolling through Western Nevada today as part of the “Drive for Healthcare Voters” tour, visiting the small towns of Gardnerville and  Fallon.  The tour is being put on by the National Nurses Organizing Committee, which is America’s largest RN union, and is complemented by a campaign including mail pieces, phonebanking, and advertising.  Our goal is to make sure that voters have the information they need to be healthcare voters.

Day 2 of the tour was intense and emotional, as our healthcare outreach led to many conversations with voters about what is going on in their lives.

Our first stop was at Woodett’s diner, the main joint in Gardnerville.  15 nurses, one gigantic wrapped bus with our “Healthcare Report Cards” on the presidential candidates printed in 10-foot high letters, and a newspaper photographer.  Yep, we were a scene.  Nurses in scrubs fanned out in pairs and spoke to about 50 voters in our visit.

The themes we heard in Gardnerville are similar to what we’re hearing throughout Nevada:  people are hurting economically, deeply, today.  They told us stories of losing their jobs, and losing their healthcare.  Many of the older voters talked about their childhood, in harder economic times, that seem to have returned today.  We passed shuttered stores and houses for sale.

Some of the people we talked to were angry about the direction of our country–and some were scared.   Some people pointed fingers at immigrants, but many more talked about a feeling of helplessness in the face of Washington D.C. and Wall Street, of politicians and businessmen on the take.

Wherever they were coming from, almost every single person was receptive to our message, thanking us and blessing us, bonding with the nurses they knew were on their side.  People hugged the nurses, and encouraged us in our work, even those who did not agree with us.

Only a few were rude.  One physician and his wife, who deigned to speak with nurses, informed us that health care reform would only lead to waiting lines-and that we have to “draw the line somewhere” on who gets healthcare.  A couple of young punks told us that they were working with the McCain campaign…and were made obviously uncomfortable when our nurse  Jill thanked them for their civic service and made them pose for a photograph with the nurses.  

From Gardnerville we rolled through the sagebrush and the high plains to another press event and another meeting with voters.

This one, though, was different.  

This was Fallon, Nevada…a symbol of our broken healthcare system and how it wastes innocent American lives.  About a decade ago, a pediatric cancer cluster began to grow in Fallon, eventually striking 17 young children with a deadly form of leukemia.

Maybe it was the nearby Navy Air base, or maybe the nearby chemical plant.  Either way, we put these kids in harm’s way…and then abandoned them when harm struck.  At least one of the youngsters died a few years ago, due to insurance company denials of care…the very denials that would end with HR 676 and guaranteed healthcare.

The mood in Fallon was somber.  Our conversations with voters outside the hospital were shorter.  We were on hallowed ground there and we knew it.  We were fortunate and honored to be able to film an interview with one of the grassroots activists who had worked to bring justice to the children stricken by the cancer cluster.

We went to a nearby Wal-Mart afterwards to do more public outreach.  Management kicked us out of course…but not before whispering that they agreed with our report cards and asking for a spare to share with family.

As we left the parking lot, one man came up to us and thanked us for giving him hope.  He said that while lots of groups go to Reno or Vegas to do outreach, they rarely take the time to go out into the small towns and rural areas.  But we were there, and he took it as a sign that good news was right around the corner.

Tomorrow we head east to the towns of Lovelock and Elko, where we will gather with nursing students to watch the final Presidential debate.  Eventually, by November we will have hit 11 Nevada cities…and headed east to Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Maine.

The National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) today kicked off a national road show and outreach campaign designed to inform voters about the healthcare proposals of both leading Presidential candidates.  5 swing states will be targeted before the election for this healthcare outreach.

As one nurse from St. Mary’s Medical Center Reno put it, “Our patients are voters too, and we’re here to get them the information they need.”

The road show hits 11 different Nevada cities stops this week-everywhere from Reno to Elko to the Shoshone Reservation-with a striking wrapped bus featuring the nurses’ report cards on Obama and McCain.  Next week, the bus turns left and heads to Ohio, Pennsylvania, Manchester NH and Bangor ME (along with a visit to healthcare hero Eric Massa, running for Congress in New York.)

The RNs will hand out a version of the report card at stops along the way, and mail a different version to both RNs and voters around the state.  Nurses and labor activists from across the country will follow the mail with phone calls to a targeted list largely composed of nurses and voters who are likely to want healthcare information, particularly non-partisan women.   The campaign will be supported by advertising in the local areas the bus is visiting.  The report cards gives Obama a B+, McCain an F, and calls on all candidates to support HR 676, and which guarantees healthcare with a  single-payer system like Medicare for All.

Donna Smith, a star of the movie SiCKO and now a healthcare organizer for NNOC (and their sister union, the California Nurses Association), commented on the first day:

Nurses shared their report card for the candidates where they rate Sen. Obama’s plan better thatn Sen. McCain’s plan because Obama improves access to care while McCain’s plans to tax employer-based healthcare benefits and may cause as many as 20 million more people to lose access to coverage and care.

Out on the sidewalks, citizens welcomed the chance to talk with the nurses on a cool fall day.  One young man became angry when he thought the nurses were representing the health care industry — “No, I don’t want to talk to you.  i owe the healthcare industry thousands…”  

But he stopped and listened when told the nurses are advocating HR676, the National Health Insurance Act — single payer healthcare for all.

The road show will undoubtedly bring some surprises — as the nurses take their message far and wide.  But the trust patients feel for nurses clearly softened even the most campaign-message-weary.  Citizens know who speaks the truth and who has a hidden agenda.  

And during these last weeks of what has been a two-year long presidential campaign cycle, nurses break through the din of attack ads and economic shell shock with a clear, clean message:  healthcare is a basic human right that we can and should provide one another.  It’s in the nation’s best interests.

Like the young man Donna talked to, many many Nevadans are hurting economically-which makes this the right message for the right time.  Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of NNOC and CNA was thinking of patients like that one when she asked “If We Can Nationalize Banks, Why Not Health Care?”:

Through the simple, cost effective approach of improving and expanding Medicare to cover everyone, the U.S. could effectively nationalize the financing of healthcare delivery, a single-payer system, while leaving intact the most private system of hospitals and doctors. … If it’s good enough for every other industrialized country, if it’s good enough for the speculators and CEOs who have mortgaged our financial security, it ought to be good enough for the rest of America.

Indeed.

This year’s extended primary just might be great for healthcare reform as the Clinton campaign’s failure may have killed off the terrible idea of insurance mandates.  She ran on it, and lost–just like Arnold did in California last year.

If so, great news all around.  Working people, already struggling, will not face the prospects of having their wages garnished to pay off Blue Cross’ inflated premiums, overhead, and denials.  Healthcare reformers can focus their work towards enacting genuine solutions, rather than fighting off this insurance marketing scheme masquerading as health care policy.  And all of us can debate the real issues at hand here, like the new report finding the number of underinsured is spiking as our healthcare system continues its death-by-insurer spiral.

We’ll take a look at this and updates from single-payer movement below!

The big political advantage of health insurance mandates (laws forcing people to buy private insurance, no matter the cost or quality) is that insurance companies love them, and can create big coalitions of business-friendly groups that seem safely centrist but also reasonably effective.  They seem so dang politically viable.

But the Wall St. Journal points out they’re not and argues that Clinton’s Exit Deals Setback to the Push for Health-Care Mandates

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s exit from the presidential race will deal a blow to supporters of a key element in the tussle over universal health coverage: the idea that all Americans be required to buy or have health insurance.

After gaining considerable political ground, especially at the state level, the concept has suffered other setbacks lately, too. Despite years of entrenched political opposition to the idea of a mandate, it was a key part of the 2006 universal health care legislation enacted in Massachusetts and of California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plan to overhaul health care in that state….

The Schwarzenegger plan, though, failed this year, in part because unions and business groups objected to its individual and employer mandates. In Massachusetts, results have been mixed. While the overall plan has cut the number of uninsured adults in that state by roughly half, the state authority responsible for overseeing the program has exempted nearly 20% of uninsured residents because it has deemed they can’t afford the policy premiums on offer.

The California plan died when the public and legislators learned that nurses and labor unions were strongly opposed to the idea-and that their wages could have been garnished or a lien put on their home.  This same strategy will kill similar proposals nationally.  It is generous to call Massachusetts’ experiment mixed; check out Dr. Steve B’s more informed comments.

There are a number of problems with mandates.  On a macro level, they make genuine healthcare reforms-single-payer-impossible by showering for-profit insurers with millions of new customers and billions in new revenues and subsidies.  On a micro level, they trap patients into this broken system and saddle them with junk insurance that will drain their bank accounts only to offer them no protection in the case of a health crisis.

A new study today elaborates on this very problem of underinsurance:

About 25 million Americans – or approximately one of every five adults younger than age 65 with health insurance – did not have sufficient coverage last year to shield them from financial hardship if they ended up in the emergency room or were seriously ill, according to a new study to be released on Tuesday by the Commonwealth Fund.

I actually think that number is really low, but at least it focuses our attention on this:

As the nation debates how best to improve its health care system, including how to insure the increasing number of Americans without coverage, policy makers also need to discuss the quality of available coverage, said Karen Davis, the president of the Commonwealth Fund.  “Lack of insurance is only part of the problem, as even the insured have serious gaps in coverage,” she said.

Meanwhile, hilarity ensues as The head of Blue Shield of California begs health reformers: “Stop demonizing health plans.”  I don’t think so.

Chellie Pingree is about to become a great Congresswoman from Maine, and she is running on a single-payer platform.  Rose Ann DeMoro from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee,  finds a gold rush town that symbolized our healthcare crisis.

Elsewhere, a writer in the Tennessean reminds us why we don’t have single-payer healthcare…the war…and the trend of getting married for health insurance continues.

Finally, Elizabeth Edwards, well, um, eviscerates John McCain’s so-called health care plan.  Snap!

One more irony about the healthcare crisis: the politicians in charge of fixing it…are guaranteed healthcare through a system that is not just “single-payer” (in terms of being financed by the government instead of insurance companies), but beyond is actually government-run.

Nurses are running ads today in 10 Iowa newspapers pointing out that this means that Dick Cheney, with his heart trouble, would probably be dead now if he were an ordinary American forced to search for cardiac care in a thicket of mercenary insurers and heartless HMOs.  Cheney gets guaranteed healthcare; we get squat.

We’ll take a look below, also at some recent highlights from the healthcare movement…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we organize for GUARANTEED healthcare on the single-payer model.

The Wall St. Journal notes:

Vice President Dick Cheney would “probably be dead by now” if not for his federally funded health care, according to an eye-catching ad calling for universal health care that will run Monday in ten Iowa newspapers. The ad is union-funded by the California Nurses Association and its national arm, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, which represents 75,000 nurses.

You know you’ve succeeded when this happens:

The vice president’s office said the ad isn’t worth more than a no comment. “Something this outrageous does not warrant a response,” said Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney.

MarketWatch noted that it is medical professionals who are giving the idea of guaranteed healthcare new life.

Among the good news this time, is that the American College of Physicians is calling for an examination of how a single-payer system would work in the U.S.  This is a great move forward for one of the nation’s premier organizations of Doctors.  

While health-care reform may play second fiddle to the war in Iraq among voters this election season, it appears that the domestic issue is taking on new life thanks to medical-industry professionals….Welcome to the 2008 elections, where medical professionals are turning up the heat in favor of a universal, single-payer system that represents a radical departure from what most of the major presidential candidates are proposing. They know that such a system is a long shot at this point, but the numbers in their camp are growing.

Elsewhere in the drive for guaranteed healthcare…

…I’m not sure who Brad Warthen is–he blogs for The State newspaper in South Carolina-but he’s become one of the most eloquent voices in support of genuine healthcare reform.

…The Charleston (West Virginia) Gazette continues its impassioned stumping for single-payer…

We are building a grand coalition.  Meanwhile, who really likes the insurance corporations except for the politicians whose pockets they line (to let them win office, and guaranteed healthcare).

The movement for guaranteed healthcare remains centered this week in California, as plans based on huge public subsidies for insurance corporations wend their way through a special session of the legislature.  The good news?  In-fighting has broken out between Governor Schwarzenegger and some of the Dems in the legislature, making it harder for them to reach the anti-patient compromise they’re shooting for.  RNs and patient advocates, among other groups, continue to monitor the situation and work to ensure that any bills hurting patients are defeated. 

Nationally, the Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report looks at the health care angles of the latest Republican Presidential debate.  Seems like they’re more interested in attacking Hillary Clinton than the healthcare crisis.

Clarence Page notes the central confusion over the SCHIP veto:

…the public has been very supportive of Medicare for the elderly, Medicaid for the poor and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP, for children whose family income is too high for Medicaid but too low to afford private coverage. Nevertheless, the president and his allies are reduced to reminding people that, “Pssst, it’s government health care so you’re supposed to be afraid of it.”

Hopefully, George Bush is right and S-CHIP is the first step towards guaranteeing all people, child or adult, have access to healthcare.

Right now, that’s only true in San Francisco.

Finally, as health insurance takes a bite out of wages, labor unions getting more involved in healthcare issues, and nurses in the Appalachian region Appalachian RNs are striking.  Go, nurses!

…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.

H.R. 676 is a bill, co-drafted by Dennis Kucinich, which will enact a true universal health care system for the United States. The bill will create a publicly financed, privately delivered healthcare program that provides all U.S. citizens with comprehensive medical coverage, including office visits, hospitalization, emergency care, long term care, prescription drugs, medical equipment, mental health services, drug and alcohol treatment, dental and vision care; with no co-pays, deductibles, or denial of coverage.

Moreover, H.R. 676 provides this comprehensive coverage to all citizens by spending $56 Billion less each year than the current for-profit, private insurance system; the private insurance system that leaves 46 million Americans uninsured and 50+ million underinsured; the same system that wastes 31% of every healthcare dollar (roughly $600 billion/yr) on non-healthcare related spending, such as marketing/advertising, an inefficient administration, rating and underwriting clients, denying coverage, and generating corporate profit; the system structured around profit that has undermined quality, affordable coverage, leaving Americans vulnerable to financial ruin in times of need because of excessive co-pays, deductibles, and medication costs.

As a not-for-profit system, H.R. 676 eliminates the waste by operating with a much more efficient 3% administration cost, utilizing the roughly $600 billion saved each year for actual healthcare and finally guaranteeing the same high quality care for every American. As a not-for-profit system, H.R. 676 creates a healthcare system structured for the purpose of providing the best care to all in the most economically efficient way, rather than maximizing profit. As a not-for-profit system, H.R. 676 finally presents access to healthcare as a basic human right, rather than just another corporate commodity. And, in his support of H.R. 676, Dennis Kucinich is the only candidate considering what will truly strengthen and provide security for all Americans, rather than the healthcare industry. In supporting H.R. 676 Dennis Kucinich is considering:

Crisis: 46 million Americans uninsured and 50+ million underinsured; medically related bankruptcies, up 2,200% since 1981, account for half of all bankruptcies in this country and, yet ¾ of them were insured at the time. H.R. 676 guarantees full coverage for every American.

Quality: Not only does H.R. 676 provide all Americans with unparalleled quality of coverage, including free choice of provider and complete portability, but it finally allows medical decisions to be made only by those that should: medical professionals. H.R. 676 has the support of over 14,000 physicians and nurses associations because it eliminates the business of private insurance and pharmaceutical companies from influencing medical decisions to save money.

Costs: The private system has utterly failed to control costs as premiums have risen three times faster than inflation and pharmaceuticals go through the roof. H.R. 676 will not only spend $56 billion less, but go further in controlling costs by allocating budgets, eliminating profit and finally having the clout to negotiate fair rates with the pharmaceutical companies.

Families: As H.R. 676 is funded through tax dollars, 95% of families will pay less for health care than they do now. Under the current private system, the average family premium is up to $11,000/yr. However, under H.R.676, a family of three making $40,000/yr. will spend roughly 1,900/yr. For comprehensive coverage without any additional costs, such as co-pays,
deductibles or prescription medications.

Businesses: The current private system places a heavy burden on businesses to provide
healthcare for employees, the average employer contributing $2,600 per employee. Under H.R. 676 the average would drop to about $1,600. This financial strain handicaps U.S. businesses competing in the world market.

The for-profit system requires non-healthcare related spending and waste to operate, the whole system designed to create income, not care. In supporting H.R. 676, Dennis Kucinich is the only presidential candidate who offers a solution for high quality, true universal health care in this country: eliminating the for-profit, private insurance system. In supporting H.R. 676 Dennis Kucinich is able to finally guarantee all Americans the security of affordable and fully comprehensive coverage. And through H.R. 676, Dennis Kucinich is reaching out to all Americans, bringing them together, to face the for-profit, private healthcare system and once again reclaim our responsibility as a great nation.

Great news for the single-payer movement: a majority of state federations of labor have now endorsed guaranteed, single-payer healthcare!  (Well, ok, 25 out of 50, but one of them is MD-DC.)  This follows on the heels of the recent announcement by the national AFL-CIO that they are pushing Medicare for All.  Do not discount how important this is…guaranteed, single-payer healthcare now becomes the only proposal with an organized, powerful constituency pushing for it. 

More labor endorsements are coming every day…Here’s what Oregon has to say:

The resolution continues, “. . . (T)he fundamental principal of the labor movement — that fragmentation leads to weakness while solidarity leads to strength — is a powerful tool that can be applied to create a consolidated, single payer American healthcare system.”

The Rockridge Institute and George Lakoff are also advocating for single-payer healthcare.  They’ve written a very interesting study on the “neo-liberal” biases inherent in how we talk about the debate.  Long story short: the conservatives don’t want you to think of a sick child, they want you to think about the problems with regulating industries like insurance.  Check out their new video…

Don’t forget, Al Gore’s also fighting for single-payer healthcare, and the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association are thanking him for it.

Elsewhere, it seems the public is quite ready to pay for SCHIP.

In case you missed it…HMOs in California?  Not doing such a great job.  But nurses could have told you that.

Finally, when conservatives attack single-payer healthcare, here’s the best they can come up with:

A shift to a single-payer system for all Americans would yield net savings in reported administrative costs of about $100 billion annually, or $2,100 in additional health care benefits for each of the 47 million individuals estimated as uninsured.

Everything else in the article is a bunch of lies written by corporate PR people, so be warned.

…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.

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.

The quick background for those of you who missed it…insurance corporations have set the terms of the debate this year in California, with Schwarzenegger proposing that all individuals be forced to purchase private insurance products, and Nunez and certain corporate Dems countering that all employers be forced to purchase them on behalf of their workforce.  Both plans would give more customers, revenue, and medical influence to the very insurance corporations who have ruined our healthcare system…while doing nothing to actually solve our healthcare crisis.

Everything has changed as a broad coalition of mainstream Dems has realized that Arnold’s plan is unaffordable for the average patient.  Of course it is!  Private insurers waste one-third of care dollars on overhead and profits.  You simply cannot do that and provide people with the care they need.  Of course, any plan built on private insurance corporations is unworkable.

What’s politically significant is that these Dems seem to be making it impossible for the grand Schwarzenegger-Nunez deal to be cut.  Personal attacks on the Governor are not the road to compromise.  Even USA Today noted the failure of the industry plan.

The Dems have hired attack dog Chris Lehane to help beat up the Governor, and he says, “the only way you get a health care plan done in this country is making it more affordable, not less – and this plan doesn’t do that.”

Meanwhile, Barbara O’Connor, a noted political commentator, added “clearly the goal is to define the governor as soft on industry, and it’s not going to resolve the conflict – and so health care will not get out.”

But what really kills the deal is the fact that Speaker Nunez’ wife has just gone on the payroll of the hospital industry, having been hired by a lobbying group funded by the California Hospital Association.  It is quite possible that he will be legally required to recuse himself on all healthcare bills…including the one he is trying to push through with Schwarzenegger.  Even if not, the symbolism of doubling his family income through HMO money leaves him with no credibility on the issue.

Or as Zenei Cortez, RN, put it: “Californians can no longer trust that he will represent the public interest and not the financial interest of a large industry that has put his wife on their payroll.”

Of course you gotta feel for the Nunez family…it’s not easy to fund global luxury travel anymore!

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.

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!