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Ken Zinn, the D.C. based Political Director for National Nurses United, talks with us about the announcement from the European Nations that 11 countries have signed on to a “financial transaction” tax, aka the Robin Hood Tax. The Robin Hood tax will raise billions of dollars by taxing financial transactions by incurring a less than half a percent tax on Wall Street transactions. Nurses in the U.S. have been on the leading edge of this concept and are making some headway here at home. Keep an open mind. If you listen to the simple details you might agree – this is a very fair and doable measure. Visit robinhoodtax.org. Read more…

This year’s Nurses Week was sadly darkened by the death of two RNs and three other caregivers in a tragic limousine fire on the San Mateo Bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area. California Governor Jerry Brown issued a statement recognizing the incredible contribution of nurses who “work hard every day to make our state a healthier, happier place.”

These women, Neriza Fojas, Michelle Estrera, Jennifer Balon, Anna Alcantara, and Felomina Geronga, dedicated their professional lives to others every day in our hospitals and clinics, lost their own unexpectedly in this horrific event.

We mourn the loss of these women who were dedicated caretakers, loyal friends and loving mothers.

The members and leaders of California Nurses Association and National Nurses United extend our deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of these women for their loss.

To honor them and assist their families, NNU has established a fund.

“What better way to recognize nurses and those with whom they work than to honor these women who cared for the patients and each other,” said Zenei Cortez, RN and CNA co-president.

“I just want to say thank you to the nurses for all your support, all your prayers,” said Abner Alcantara, husband of one of the deceased nurses, Anna Alcantara. Read more…

Check out this fun, new MOVIE TRAILER about National Nurse Magazine “going viral” after launching their all-new interactive, more shareable, DIGITAL EDITION.   After you watch the trailer, go check out the magazine –  brought to you by National Nurses United.

Read more…

By Deborah Burger, RN, 12/18/12

Registered nurses across the country mourn the loss of life marked by the shooting of innocents in Connecticut. This should be a clear wake up call for the White House, Congress, and state and local legislators to take action to address causes of the violence, including restoring the devastating cuts that have occurred to mental health services across the U.S.

Every day a massive tragedy is being played out on a smaller scale everyday in emergency rooms, in mental health facilities, and on the streets across our country, where, with sometimes devastating consequences, mental health is underfunded to a shocking, and sometimes deadly degree.

Members of National Nurses United, the nation’s largest organization of nurses, say it is time to act with both short term and long term responses. It is incumbent on all of us to:

• Demand private healthcare systems reverse the pervasive cuts to mental health services, especially by profit-focused institutions which view mental health as an easy target for cuts because it is less profitable and has fewer public advocates.
• Increase federal, state and local funding of public mental health programs and public health clinics, which play a crucial role in identifying persons with potentially violent mental health problems.

Read more…

Learn More about the Robin Hood Tax!

New York – The U.S. Robin Hood Tax Campaign today applauded the introduction in Congress of a bill that would impose a tax on Wall Street speculation.  Introduced by Rep. Keith Ellison, HR 6411, the Inclusive Prosperity Act,  would raise up to $350 billion in annual revenues that would be used to breathe new life into Main Street communities across America, as well as international health, sustainable prosperity and environmental programs.

The legislation embodies the Robin Hood Tax, a 0.5% tax on the trading of stocks, 50 cents on every $100 of trades, and lesser rates on trading in bonds, derivatives and currencies.  It marks the return of a sales tax on financial transactions in place from 1914 to 1966 and targets the high-risk, high-speed trading that dominates the markets.

“The American public provided hundreds of billions to bailout Wall Street during the global fiscal crisis yet bore the brunt of the crisis with lost jobs and reduced household wealth,” said Rep. Ellison in a press statement.  “This is a phenomenally wealthy nation, yet our tax and regulatory system allowed the financial titans to amass great riches while impoverishing the systems that enable inclusive prosperity. Read more…

Carolyn is just one of the people nurses and the Campaign for a Healthy California has talked to about healthcare. Carolyn knew she was having a heart attack but was afraid to go to the hospital. She thought it might be better to die than to saddle her sons with the burden of her medical bills. Fortunately she survived, but Caroline is 135,000 dollars in debt to health “care”.

The audience at our Town Hall meeting to discuss Medicare for All was distressed by Carolyn’s story, but not entirely shocked. Nurses are hearing many of these kinds of stories as we travel through California asking the public to “Tell Us Where it Hurts.”

Find out more including the bus tour schedule here:

www.NursesHealAmerica.org Read more…

Nurses are traveling throughout California to promote Medicare for All. Nurses are on the front lines every day with patients who cannot afford care. Now President Obama’s Affordable Care Act mandates that people buy health insurance, but the insurance companies are still in charge, able to set rates and deny procedures. Nurses in California support an improved Medicare for All, with everybody in, nobody out of health care.

Find out more at:

www.nationalnursesunited.org
www.calnurses.org

Click on the big red bus for a tour schedule and info on how you can get involved. Read more…

Bay Area Sutter RNs Begin One-Day Strike
Hospital Giant Seeks Massive Cuts Despite $4 Billion in Profits
Nurses to Also Protest Sutter Plans to Close Hospitals, Cut Care

Registered nurses are on strike today at eight hospitals that are part of the wealthy Sutter corporate chain to protest Wall Street-type demands for more than 100 sweeping reductions in patient care and nurses’ standards and workplace conditions.

The nurses, members of the California Nurses Association, National Nurses United, offered to call off the strike if Sutter agreed to withdraw the concession demands.

Some 4,500 RNs, as well as respiratory and radiology techs, are affected by the walkout at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center facilities in Berkeley and Oakland, Mills-Peninsula Health Services hospitals in Burlingame and San Mateo, Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, San Leandro Hospital, Sutter Delta in Antioch, Sutter Solano in Vallejo, Novato Community Hospital, and Sutter Lakeside.

Despite making over $4 billion in profits since 2007, and paying its chief executive Pat Fry $4.7 million a year (or $2,260 per hour), Sutter is demanding big cuts for its RNs, many of which would pose risks to patient safety. Among Sutter’s demands are proposals that would effectively force nurses to work when sick, dangerously exposing already fragile patients to infection and further complications; thousands of dollars in increased costs to nurses for health coverage for themselves and their families; forcing many nurses to work in hospital units for which they do not have clinical expertise, posing a risk to patients, and huge cuts for nurses who work part time schedules. Read more…

Nurses, Robin Hood and the band of merry women and men, and scores of friends are strapping on their boots and preparing to head to Chicago Friday, May 18.

The absence of AWOL G-8 leaders, who decided to run off and hide in the woods of rural Maryland rather than face a disgruntled public, has not dampened the spirits of Robin Hood and the nurses who will proceed with a colorful march through Chicago streets.

The march culminates in a Daley Plaza rally where Robin and the nurses will scour the brush and trees for the absent world leaders to determine what they are doing to help average families, not just the banks and Wall Street high rollers, in the midst of continuing economic gloom.

Renown musician Tom Morello, The Nightwatchman, will join the festivities, performing at Daley Plaza.

“Bailouts and bonuses for the banks, austerity for the rest of us, that’s been the prescription of the 1 percent and far too many among the G-8. No wonder they have run off to seclusion at Camp David,” said Karen Higgins, RN, co-president of National Nurses United, which is sponsoring the May 18 action.

“But they won’t be able to avoid the 99 percent for long if they don’t take meaningful action to heal the U.S. Read more…

With the approaching Supreme Court showdown on the President Obama’s 2010 health care law (the Affordable Care Act, modeled, of course, on Mitt Romney’s law in Massachusetts), the U.S. healthcare system remains a dysfunctional mess, as nurses bear witness to every day.

In late March, the Court will devote six hours over three days to oral arguments on the legal challenges to the law — the most time the Court has given a case in 56 years. The testimony will likely be accompanied by a possible record 100 “friend of the court” briefs, Kaiser Health News reported February 16.

While the ACA had some undeniable positive elements, such as permitting young adults up to age 26 to remain on their parents health plan, and a few limitations on insurance industry abuses, such as barring them from denying coverage due to pre-existing conditions, our health care nightmare is far from over.

And, as nurses have reported repeatedly the past year, the economic crisis has great aggravated the suffering with broad declines in health status that are directly linked to job loss, unpayable medical bills, and families having to choose between paying for food, housing, clothing or healthcare.

As to the law itself, despite its name the ACA has done little to actually make healthcare affordable. Read more…