Tag Archives: California Nurses Association

Health Care

4,000 Striking CNA/NNOC Nurses Fight for Patient Care

4,000 brave women and men, RNs from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, are spending this week on the picket lines outside of Sutter Health Hospitals throughout Northern California, on a 10-day strike over patient care issues.  Let me tell you about it, and introduce you to some of the RNs, because this is an important strike for a re-energized American labor movement and a key moment for the nation’s battle for quality healthcare.

First up, of course, the nurses:

 

This is a long strike for any worker, but one that turns on the most basic issues of nursing and patient safety.  Sutter Health is, even by HMO standards, an outlier in their push to cut corners on patient care in order to bump up corporate profits.  You can’t argue with their success on either count.  In 2006, Sutter reported record profits of $587 million.  Much of those profits come from routinely understaffing their hospital units by denying meal and rest breaks to nurses.  As a practical matter, what this means is that if a nurse, in the midst of a 12-hour shift, decides to take her lunch hour…then her patients lose coverage.

Can you imagine that terrible ethical dilemma?  Grab a sandwich or make sure my sick patients are cared for?  Especially for nurses, who define their work as “patient advocacy?”

That’s why these nurses had to walk out and make a personal sacrifice for the good of their patients and their profession.

Sutter’s response?  To embark on a campaign of harassment, intimidation, and lies.  Read more about it here.  Sutter has threatened to fire strikers, cut off health benefits, has posted guards at nursing stations to glare at RNs, and has taken to regularly demonizing its own nurses in the press.

The good news?  Sutter foolishly picked a fight with a group of (mostly) women who are not easily intimidated…especially by some corporate hack who have shown they don’t care about patient care.

The better news?  This strike affirms the relevance of America’s labor movement to the key questions our country is undergoing.  This strike has been marked by deep public support and sympathy, with Sutter Health’s behavior roundly criticized by elected officials, the public, and the news media.  High-profile strikes like this that win over the public make it easier for other groups of workers to stand up for their own rights.  It’s worth noting that the recent increase in the numbers of unionized workers has largely come from the ranks of healthcare workers-and that CNA/NNOC is the nation’s fastest-growing union.

And the best news?  The nurses of Sutter Health are demonstrating the way forward in our country’s struggle for guaranteed healthcare.  A major reason our health system is so dysfunctional is that corporations like Sutter Health have rigged the system and treat patients as profit-makers, not as human beings.  If we can win patient safety advances at Sutter, we can win them across the country-especially if we inspire the nation’s nurses to continue taking their patient advocacy from the bedside to the statehouse and even to the streets.

If these nurses inspire you, why not call the CEO of Sutter, Pat Fry at 916 286 6752 and tell him it’s time to settle with the nurses!

…cross-posted at the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association’s Breakroom Blog, as we fight to bring about guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model…

Health Care

CNA Forces Insurer to Buckle, Provide Life-Saving Care for Sick California Teen

The CNA has been in the headlines for other reasons lately, but I don’t think anyone can discount the incredible activism they have engaged in on behalf of patients being denied life-saving medical treatment.  Word now comes of another victory against the “murder by spreadsheet” insurance industry who felt like saving a kid’s life wasn’t good for business.

In the face of a national campaign on behalf of Nick Colombo, insurance giant PacifiCare has reversed its decisions and agreed to critically needed cancer treatments for the 17-year-old from Placentia, Calif.  The decision came after the company was overwhelmed by calls organized by Nick’s friends and family, along with RNs from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, and netroots activists.

Over 100 of Nick’s classmates, friends of the family with their young children, and nurses protested in front of the insurance company headquarters this morning to demand that the approval be put in writing, which a PacifiCare representative, surrounded by T.V. cameras, and  promised to do.

“I am extremely happy about PacifiCare’s reversal, said Ricky Colombo, Nick’s 19-year old brother.  “The goal was to get treatment for Nick, and CNA/NNOC and other allies helped us with that.  We decided to go through with the rally in order to get their decision on the record and make sure they back up their words-and also because there are thousands of others in similar situations who can’t get the care they need.  We feel blessed to have this community supporting our family.”

In the fight for universal health care, all sides of the debate on the left are going to be instrumental.  The CNA’s tenacity and effectiveness in organizing “patient revolts” like this is very valuable, particularly to show the inequities in the current broken health care system.  Activists shut down PacifiCare’s phone system on multiple occasions before they capitulated.

To beat the powerful interests that want to maintain the status quo you’re going to need every activist and every strategy you can find.  And we’re going to win this fight, one patient at a time.

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Sham “Company Union” Stopped–Major Victory for Nurses, Patients, Labor

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This week in Ohio there was a major victory for democratic, member-led, social justice unionism.  A hospital chain hand-picked a union, SEIU, which is known for being friendly to employers, and attempted to impose this company union on employees without a democratic process or any show of support among workers.

Local nurses, together with the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, started an effort to block this anti-democratic, top-down deal and were successful–in a major victory for RNs, patients, and healthcare reform.

Story below the flip

You can read more in the Chicago Trib, or from the California Nurses Association, below.  

A bit of background: The Service Employees International Union is known for “partnering” with major corporations–whether that’s Wal-Mart on healthcare reform, nursing home companies on blocking nursing home reform, or their own employers, including HMOs and hospital chains.  When they partner with their employers, they agree to work together for the good of the company, which puts the needs of members second to the needs of the employers, and ends their ability to advocate for social justice and truly progressive reforms, including single-payer healthcare.  

This is a danger to the entire labor movement, and the main reason SEIU bolted from the AFL-CIO a few years ago.

But this extraordinary story–which included having the hospital chain actually file the papers for the union–is a new step for SEIU, and fortunately one that has been stopped.

One journalist reports she was told, “It’s like the workers will have two bosses, and they pay dues to one of them.”

Here’s the full NNOC/CNA statement:

Hospital Chain and Hand Picked Union, SEIU, Forced to Cancel Rigged Election After Protests by RNs and Other Employees – ‘A Victory for Employees, Patient Care, and Union Democracy’

After public exposure and protests, the Catholic Healthcare Partners chain and its hand picked union, the Service Employees International Union, today cancelled rigged elections — called without a single sign of support from the employees — planned this week for 8,000 registered nurses and other employees at nine Ohio hospitals in Cincinnati, Lima, and Springfield.

“This is a significant victory for employee rights, patient care protections, and workplace democracy, and a huge setback for a hospital industry and SEIU that hoped to make this shoddy abuse of what should be a democratic process into a national model,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association, which challenged the sham elections.

CHP and SEIU arranged the votes through a top-down deal that “turned decades of labor law rights for employees on their head and made a mockery of constitutional protections of free speech,” DeMoro noted.

With the collusion of the Bush administration’s National Labor Relations Board, the employer filed for the election without any showing of support for SEIU, and maneuvered to stifle opposition and block potential participation from any legitimate union, she said.

CHP even resorted to the extreme action of going to court to obtain an injunction to block NNOC/CNA RNs from talking to the nurses about their rights and their ability to stop the hospital from imposing an unwanted union on them, while the hospitals were also blocking employees from internal discussions about the rushed vote.

DeMoro sharply criticized CHP and SEIU, along with the labor board for “determining among themselves the destiny of a workforce that is primarily women. The chauvinism and arrogance of their behavior is appalling, and has received the repudiation it so richly deserved.”

“But their conspiracy of silence and the whole shoddy scheme fell apart when it was exposed to the light of day and the nurses and other employees became aware that they had alternatives to a union selected for them by their employer,” said DeMoro.  

“They pulled the election precisely because it was abundantly clear there was no support from the very employees for a union imposed on them by their employer and disgust with the underhanded abuse of their constitutional rights.”

The cancelled elections, DeMoro added, are a “huge blow to SEIU International’s corrupted approach to growth at the expense of the public interest or a democratic voice of the workers.”

“SEIU depends on the complicity and support of employers even without any indication of support from the workers they are pretending to represent. That’s not what unions should stand for, and it’s not democratic,” said DeMoro. She noted growing opposition from SEIU members across the nation, reflected on the website www.reformseiu.org.

Finally, DeMoro also criticized the role of the labor board. The planned CHP elections were a template for new rules proposed by the NLRB to sanction employers filing elections without worker support, a form of company unionism that the 1935 law creating modern labor law rights was intended to stop.

But the current NLRB, stacked with anti-union appointees by the Bush administration, “has been steadily gutting workers’ rights, and turning the board into a vehicle for suppressing worker democracy and rights rather than protecting them. This election, and the rules now proposed, are a critical component of that ominous trend,” DeMoro added.

Note: I am a healthcare activist with the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.  We are the nation’s largest RN union, the nation’s fastest-growing union, and sponsors of state and federal bills for guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model, aka Medicare for All

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Rose Ann DeMoro: What’s Next for Healthcare

The ramifications of the collapse of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s flawed healthcare bill will probably reach to the national level, as leaders and activists will study the lessons of why it failed and how to avoid making the same mistakes.

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee was probably the first group to oppose the bill, and we did so based on the belief that handing more customers, revenue, and medical influence to insurance corporations would hurt our patients; this was a bad proposal strictly on the terms of public health.  Moreover, we warned early on that the financial projections would never “pencil out”–it’s simply not possible to protect out-sized profits for insurance corporations and to solve the healthcare crisis.  They’re mutually exclusive goals.

I want to share with you the thoughts of Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the CNA/NNOC, on the next steps for healthcare.

Over at California Progress Report, let’s start with DeMoro’s analysis of why the bill failed:

AB x 1 was rejected not because Californians and the legislature like the status quo or do not yearn for fixing our broken healthcare system. The bill collapsed because it was fundamentally flawed on its merits on access, quality, and cost.

Among our key concerns were the mandate forcing individuals to purchase insurance with no controls on costs or a minimum standard for benefits or quality, the failure to provide meaningful protection to families facing a huge spike in out-of-pocket costs, and the danger that the low employer mandate would encourage employers to drop current coverage.

Of course the solution to the healthcare crisis is to solve the healthcare crisis, and we can learn how by looking at the universal, non-profit, single-payer coverage common to nearly every other industrialized democracy:

Many the remarks by committee members during discussion on the bill bear particular note, including committee chair Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s comment that not voting for this bill “does not mean we prefer the status quo, any more than Gov. Schwarzenegger was saying he preferred the status quo when he vetoed SB 840,” a single-payer, Medicare-for-all style bill.

We concur with Sen. Leland Yee who noted, “the only way we can get true health care reform is with a single-payer process” that “is fair and makes sure everyone is covered.”

A challenge to healthcare advocates, and legislators, to immediately extend coverage to children:

In the interim, there is a short term alternative. Adopt AB x 1’s fee on hospitals reimbursed through higher Medi-Cal payments to hospitals proposed in the bill, and use the resulting federal money to expand coverage for children.

Health Care

The Insurance Industry Power Grab–CA and Nationally

Should government mandate the purchase of for-profit insurance products, backed up by threats to garnish wages or place a lien on homes?  Or should we move to a guaranteed healthcare system modeled on the single-payer financing that is working in Taiwan, Canada, and most of Europe?  

This very interesting debate is happening simultaneously at the national and state levels-because mandated insurance is the top priority of the insurance industry, and they’re pushing it everywhere they can.  

We’ll take a look below…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.

In California, Arnold Schwarzenegger and most of the state’s insurers have lined up with Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to push a mandate law through.  Its future is uncertain.  

At the Presidential level, Sens. Clinton and Edwards are attacking Sen. Obama for declining to endorse their mandate.  Obama rightly argues that people don’t have health insurance not because they don’t want it, but because they can’t afford it.  A difficult argument to make in a sound-bite world, but the right one.

The big Schwarzenegger/Nunez healthcare compromise is going for a hearing and a vote before the Senate Health Committee tomorrow.  No doubt the insurance lobbyists are working overtime to call in their chits.  At least one paper, the San Jose Mercury News, argues the Governor is “misplaying” his hand and “making a bad bet” with his healthcare bill.  Agreed.  They state:

The governor’s proposed budget cuts, which will do considerable damage to a health care system already in crisis, are only exacerbating the political challenge of passing his reforms.

(This editorial has one major factual error-saying that insurance corporations oppose the Schwarzenegger/Nunez bill.  In fact, major CA insurer but one is backing the bill.)

New American Media, a coalition of ethnic news sources, lists the top 5 Reasons ABX11 is a sham, and even reps from the insurance industry thinks it could go down.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts residents are learning what it’s like to live where the purchase of junk insurance is mandated by the power of the state: it’s a kick in the groin:

THE NEARLY 300,000 Massachusetts residents who signed up for health insurance under the state’s new initiative are in for a rude awakening. They may now have some form of coverage, but many of them, even the very poor who used to get free care, are going to be socked with steep medical bills.

Simultaneously, the mandate debate continues to roil the Presidential.  I’ll point out what Sen. Obama won’t–that an individual mandate is the top priority of the insurance industry right now, and that it will end our chance to achieve guaranteed, single-payer healthcare, by giving insurance companies more power and degrading group purchase of insurance.

And Ian Welsh just wants everyone to repeat after him: single-payer is cheaper than what we’ve got now (or would get under mandates.)

Lets not forget that small businesses across the country are being forced into bankruptcy by predatory insurance corporations protecting their huge health insurance profits.  We want more of that?

UPDATE: Please keep an eye out for the announcements from several major California unions that they oppose ABX1.1!

Health Care

Arresting Patients for Healthcare Advocacy!!

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Okay, this is an extraordinary photo of a beyond-the-pale moment: Steve Maviglio, the Deputy Chief of Staff to Fabian Nunez, the Speaker of the California Assembly, directing Capitol police to arrest an un-insured patient for speaking to the media about healthcare reform.  That’s Maviglio on the far right, and Jerry Flanagan from ConsumerWatchDog in the middle.

Conversations with press like this happen every day, every hour in the Capitol; it’s why the building exists.

But I guess most conversations aren’t on the subject of the insurance industry’s number one priority-which is to pass an “individual mandate” law.  And most conversations don’t happen as a gigantic fake healthcare reform bill seems to be careening to an ugly defeat.

Which is why most conversations don’t end with patients being cited for a misdemeanor.

We’ll tell what happened and why, below

…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.

It’s a good news-bad news situation.

The bad news is that the insurance industry has convinced some politicians on their payroll to hop aboard the individual mandate train, and pass a law requiring every person in the state to buy one of their products-no matter the cost or the quality.  The train’s rolling here in California, for a test run, before it goes national.

The good news is this bill is about to collapse, and this could well end this nasty little trend in healthcare reform, and open the door to replacing insurance companies altogether with universal, non-profit, single-payer coverage.  The kind that works in every other industrialized democracy.

Meet Ron Norton.  He’s on the far left in the picture, looking confused as to why Speaker Nunez thinks he’s a threat to the Capitol.  He’s been victimized by the Mitt Romney plan in Massachusetts, which is the basis for the Schwarzenegger, Clinton, and other individual mandate plans…and here’s what he’s got to say:

I’m Ron Norton, an adjunct professor of radiology and an administrator at a Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, Massachusetts. But like 66% of our community college teachers, I’m considered an independent contractor and don’t get health insurance.

“After a few years of making about $21,000, I made closer to $40,000 last year because I’m also doing an administrative job. Under the Massachusetts insurance law my family won’t get subsidy because even though my wife has health insurance with her employer, her income is counted against my eligibility.

“Her small employer doesn’t offer family insurance. I imagine lots of California families are in the same situation.

“I’m 47 and have no health problems but the cheapest individual plan available in Massachusetts is $234 a month. That’s 6.8% of my salary. That “cheap” plan has a $2,000 per person pushing the cost up to 12.7% of my gross salary. Even if I bought the policy I still wouldn’t have affordable health care, and the number of doctors is very limited.

“I have a daughter, and it gets much worse if I want to insure her. The cheapest plan for the two of us is $440 a month, $5280 a year. That’s 11.6% of my income alone. The cheapest medium-range plan – without the huge deductibles – is $632 a month, nearly 20% of my own salary.

Details, details.  Doesn’t he know how much money these insurers have paid politicians to support their bill?

Hopefully, and apparently, not enough, as Capitol rumors are abounding now that the Schwarzenegger-Nunez bill is DOA.  Some reasons why:

First-the California Nurses Association has begun major advertising against it.  People generally people trust RNs more than insurance companies on healthcare issues.

Second-It’s becoming clear that voters don’t like this particular mandate. (Warning; .pdf, of poll.)

Third-California’s in a heap of budget trouble, and now is not the right time for multi-billion dollar public subsidies to already-profitable insurance corporations.

Fourth-the “insiders’ coalition” is breaking apart.  I mean, who really deep down likes insurance corporations?

Fifth-Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan is emerging as a total loser.

We might a few more arrests along the way, but we can see the light, and build a template for stopping fake healthcare reform and winning guaranteed healthcare. Or, as we sometimes call it, CheneyCare.

Everybody in, nobody out, nothing less.

Health Care

Hundreds of Reasons to Oppose ABX11

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The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee put out a simple call for a petition last week, demanding access for our patients to CheneyCare, the guaranteed, non-profit, quality healthcare available to Dick Cheney.  (Sign up if you haven’t already.)

What we didn’t expect was the hundreds of people who would write in with their stories of abuse at the hands of the insurance corporations.  This is a heart-breaking window into the pain and heartache that insurers inflict on America.  And now ABX11 would require everyone to purchase insurance products from these same corporations who are already ripping people off?  That’s nuts.

…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.

What’s happening out there in the wide wide world of guaranteed healthcare reform…

The California Nurses Association is working to end ABX1 1, the “fake” healthcare reform proposal floating around Sacramento.  That bill was crafted by insurers and features an “individual mandate’–wonk talk for a law forcing people to purchase expensive insurance products no matter their cost or quality. Read all about it here.

On the national level, Barack Obama is launching an ad to spread the word about his healthcare plan.  His plan’s not perfect-he avoids universal, single-payer coverage-but he pledges to oppose the individual mandate scam that’s being pushed by Romney, Schwarzenegger, Clinton, et al.  That’s a good first step.  (For the record, CNA/NNOC has made no endorsement.)

Elswhere, Ian Welsh looks at the recent article finding that 100,000 Americans die each year due to our deficient healthcare system.  That’s 100,000 victims of the health insurance industry.  He writes:

So choose whether you support single payer health care. But remember that in making that choice you are making a profound statement about what you consider important – free market ideology or saving lives and pain – and that single payor healthcare has been proven to actually be cheaper than the current system. Immoral and impractical – all in one.

Finally, the Rutland Herald in Vermont thinks single-payer “may be upon us sooner than we think” and  The Time Goes By blog wants to sign up for CheneyCare.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Health Care

New Ad Campaign Against Schwarzenegger-Nunez Individual Mandate, Featuring Words of Sen. Obama

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Howdy all,

Just want to let you know about our new radio ad campaign against the fake healthcare reform bill.  It will be running statewide throughout January, as the Senate considers whether to weigh in on the side of patients or the big insurance corps.

It’s based on the very interesting parallels between the national debate and the California debate for healthcare.  Like the proposals of some politicians nationally, both Republican and Democratic, the Schwarzenegger-Nunez deal has at its heart an individual mandate.

The ad quotes Sen. Obama noting “some folks who said that it’s not possible to provide universal health care coverage unless there’s a mandate._ Their essential argument is the only way to get everybody covered is if the government forces you to buy health insurance. If you don’t buy it, then you’ll be penalized in some way….The reason people don’t have health insurance is because they can’t afford it.”

 

Under the Schwarzenegger-Nunez deal, ABX1.1, insurers would gain millions of new customers and hundreds of millions in additional profits while failing in its promise of solving the state’s healthcare crisis, says CNA/NNOC.  Supporters of the bill include seven of the state’s biggest insurers: Kaiser Permanente, Health Net, PacifiCare, Blue Shield, Cigna, and Molina Health Care–for very obvious reasons.

“Individual mandates are not a humane or sound health care policy. Californians desperately want real healthcare reform, but AB x11 is not it,” said Zenei Cortez, RN, a member of the CNA/NNOC Council of Presidents.   “Sadly, AB x11 is a prescription for more financial risk, denial of care, and heartache for California patients.  As patient advocates, RNs will continue working to defeat ABX1.1.”

The ad also calls on Californians to join with nurses in working for genuine healthcare reform, such as SB 840, a bill that will be heard in the California Assembly later this year. The ad may also be heard at www.guaranteedhealthcare.org

The full text of the ad reads:

(voice over) The nurses of California agree with Senator Barack Obama: the government shouldn’t punish people who can’t afford health insurance. _

(Sen. Obama) I know that there have been some folks who said that it’s not possible to provide universal health care coverage unless there’s a mandate._ Their essential argument is the only way to get everybody covered is if the government forces you to buy health insurance. If you don’t buy it, then you_ll be penalized in some way. _And the reason people don’t have health insurance is because they can’t afford it.

(voice over) So why are Gov. Schwarzenegger and Assembly Speaker Nunez proposing a law, AB x 11, to force you to buy insurance which would pad the pockets of the insurance companies? AB x 11 is not the path to the universal healthcare we so desperately need. Don’t let the politicians force you to buy insurance you can’t afford and which won’t help you when you’re sick.

Join California nurses in calling for real healthcare reform.

Go to guaranteedhealthcare.org.

Paid for by the California Nurses Association which is responsible for the content of this ad. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

Health Care

We All Deserve CheneyCare–Not CIGNACare

From Nataline Sarkisyan to Angela Dispenza to ten-year-old Preston, we all deserve the kind of care that Dick Cheney has.

Pre-existing condition?  No problem.  Guaranteed healthcare?  Of course.  Heartless insurance bureaucrats meddling in medical decisions?  No way.  A single standard of quality care?  Nothing less will do.  

But why just Cheney?  Why not everyone?

Want to sign up for it?

…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.

 

Activist nurses around the country are going to take the case for CheneyCare directly to the Presidential candidates this year-but we need your help.  Go sign up.  We’ll send nurses in scrubs to carry the petition on your behalf to every member of Congress and Presidential candidate from both parties.  Patients need to keep pressure on politicians to really fix the healthcare system and ensure guaranteed healthcare for all Americans.

Nurses are running ads about CheneyCare today in major newspapers across the country.  As the Presidential race swings into high gear, it’s time for the pateints’ revolt to match it, and display the kind of intensity and organization that will force the politicians to listen to us-and not the insurance donors.  It’s time for the patients’ revolt, and Dick Cheney, and the care he receives but we don’t, is the perfect symbol to make it happen.  Take a look at the full ad, today in the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, and USA Today.

In case you missed it, The Wall St. Journal noted:

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…in 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.

We are building a grand coalition.  

And the insurance industry?  Well, who really likes them except for the politicians whose pockets they line?

Uncategorized

Nataline’s Brother Invites You to Her Memorial

(Nataline Sarkysian’s brother has invited anyone who would like to attend to Nataline’s funeral tomorrow. – promoted by shayera)

There will also be a funeral for her friends and family, but Bedig Sarkysian, Nataline’s brother, has asked the California Nurses Association to help invite all of her friends and supporters to this public service in memory of Nataline:

Tomorrow, Sunday, December 23. There is going to be a vigil for Nataline at 6:00pm (right after Church) at Ferrahian High School.

Everyone is welcome, and everyone is welcome to speak their mind, say a prayer, read something they wrote or whatever. If anybody has anything to say, or any last words for her, this is the place to say it. It doesn’t look like people will be able to speak during the funeral service, so whoever wants to make their peace, this is the opportunity for them.

Evenif you have nothing to say, if youve known her for years, or never even met her. We can come together and pay our respects, console each other, give each other strength and remember her.

Please repost this and tell everyone you know

5300 white oak blvd

encino, ca

Bedig’s MySpace page is www.MySpace.com/freekobe