By Donna Smith, American SiCKO, communications specialist, CNA/NNOC
CHICAGO – It’s a week of bad news for my friends and extended family. I am almost afraid to answer the phone or open the emails. Three people I care about. Three new cancer diagnoses. Bone, lung, breast. Surgery, radiation and chemo coming down the pike.
And awash in a system gone mad for money, these patients will become cancer survivors – like me – not because they’ve been born with or bestowed with the human right to be treated when ill, but because their various health coverage plans allow it. At least that’s what I pray today for them, because that's what I must pray for them.
Last week, none of these wonderful souls had any idea they would hear the words, "You have cancer." Each was ensconced in the stuff of everyday life: jobs, marriages, gasoline prices and watching the endless coverage of the presidential race. Then their worlds did a three-sixty.
In an instant. It truly could be any one of us at any time.
In the current toxic environment for Labor, union organization and membership has been on the downslide ever since the Nixon Administration and the National Republican Party took control of the public argument. Union membership has gone from around 23% in the mid 1970s to just 7% now. Part of the tactical decision making included not just publicly demonizing the cause of Labor, but to create laws and regulations that provide a breeding ground for dividing labor among themselves.
As a member of AFTRA, part of the AFL-CIO umbrella, I stand at the crossroads of a historic break in the TV & Film acting unions. For the first time in 27 years, AFTRA and SAG supended Phase One the Collective Bargaining agreement. More after the fold.
Some of you know that last Thursday, June 19th was a nationwide day of action against the for-profit health insurance industry.
I was in San Francisco where AHIP was holding its annual convention.
I marched with the heroes from the California Nurses Association. CNA took the lead in organizing the protests nationwide.
The protests began on Wednesday, June 18th outside the Moscone center. We had a press conference with Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, Hilda Sarkisyan (who, I'm thrilled to let you know will be at Netroots Nation as a panelist on the health policy panel--I'll tell you more about that in another diary), Rick Colombo, the father of Nick Colombo and many others.
Important note for Kossacks in San Francisco: If you're attending the demonstration, please look for us at 12 noon at 4th and Howard Street - Moscone West. We'll be carrying a large orange banner which will say, (of course), DAILY KOS.
Thousands of Americans are assembling today at 12 noon today outside the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco. We're here to demonstrate against AHIP and for single-payer healthcare in the United States--what the rest of the civilized world accepts as normal.
AHIP is the chief lobbyist of the for profit Murder By Spreadsheet insurance industry.
It's the first time AHIP has held its annual convention and been greeted with thousands of outraged Americans. We're going to give them a hearty welcome to the City by the Bay.
We're here because AHIP is a parasitic organization whose only purpose is to take money and destroy lives. Before the day ends, AHIP will know it can no longer waltz into a great American city unchallenged. We will fight AHIP wherever it goes. And ultimately the American people will get guaranteed and affordable single-payer healthcare.
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!
In an extraordinary convention just concluding in Puerto Rico, here's what you didn't hear from Andy Stern's paid PR blitz. SEIU was under siege throughout by protest encampments of the popular Puerto Rican Teachers’ Union, responding to SEIU’s raid of the island’s largest union-- during a strike to improve horrific educational conditions.
Inside the convention, to the detriment of the overall labor movement, Stern successfully squashed the internal dissent by SEIU’s democracy activists, thereby further concentrating power in himself. The CEO model.
And in an extraordinary development, Stern announced that SEIU is basically doing away with labor reps in favor of outsourced call centers...which makes sense, in that if you sign no-strike promises to your employer, why would you need to mobilize your members?
There’s more! SEIU is continuing its war against state and national RN unions by now picking up John McCain’s frame of attacking "government-run healthcare" as their latest salvo against the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO). That's called selling out healthcare reform.
The insurance industry is showing its true colors today, with a couple of odious bills premised on the assumption that subsidizing insurance corporations is the way to guarantee healthcare. As we move towardsJune 19th-the National Day of Protest Against Insurance Corporations—this anti-patient legislation reminds us why we fight the big insurers and word for guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model.
Let’s take a look.
Brought to you by the California Nurses Association, National Nurses Organizing Committee, and Leadership Conference on Guaranteed Healthcare.
RNs now celebrate Mary Seacole Day as part of National Nurses Week—and as the day we honor the social justice aspect of the work of nurses. Mary Seacole remains an important inspiration for the national nurses movement being built by CNA/NNOC (California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee), which focuses on improving patient care and safety in hospitals and on bringing this country the guaranteed, single-payer health care that our patients deserve.
Miss Laura had a front page piece yesterday entitled, SEIU: The Fight Goes Past the Election. I am aware of the ongoing rivalry between SEIU and the California Nurses Association (CNA) in organizing Hospitals and Health Systems as well as strategic and tactical political positions put forth by both unions.
Though not an SEIU member, I know of SEIU's activism in Healthcare. I see Unions in Healthcare as a critical, counterveiling weight against an exploitive, moneymongering Healthcare system that has taken hold in the U.S. I thought I'd be in for a good, thought provoking read on the SEIU I know from experience shared with SEIU members I had seen throught the years during GOTV and social justice campaigns.Of course, despite being busy volunteering for Barack wherever possible, I do remember there was that recent beef I had heard and read about briefly regarding CNA and Ralph Nader charging SEIU and its President, Andy Stern with "thuggery" violence and intimidation following an SEIU protest of CNA at a Labor Notes meeting in Dearborn, MI...
There's going to be a winner and loser in my book regarding this.
The union will provide resources exclusively to the GOP this fall, the person said. Union leaders, joined by key health care industry figures, met Friday with Sen. Bruno to discuss how to help the GOP hold control.
The Reps hold the Senate in this blue state by a 32-30 margin, which is very bad news for a wide range of progressive causes, especially healthcare. This SEIU-Republican deal is instructive for those following the debate within the labor movement between Andy Stern’s SEIU and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, much of which turns on the political profiles of the unions and on CNA/NNOC's work towards guaranteed healthcare.
38,000 insurance industry executives will be in attendance, and they will know we mean business. I'll be there and I hope as many Bay area people as possible can get away for an hour or so to join in this important day of protest.
Additional details will follow.
Remember a week or so ago, I suggested you pay attention to the New York Times list of the top emailed stories. I think of the Times email list as a barometer into the psyche of a certain swath of the population.
A major reason for the increasing controversy surrounding SEIU International has been their lack of commitment to genuine healthcare reform—and in fact their active attempts to undermine and sink patient-centered, single-payer reforms.
Progressive elements in the labor movement (and their own union) have long been aware of this problem, as have healthcare and single-payer activists around the country.
This story is now entering the wider public discussion as SEIU International embarks on new partnerships with corporate America and, all too often, Republican power brokers. We’ll take a look, below, at their latest partnership, this one with the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Realtors, to support a bill that hurts patients in the name of increasing insurance corporation profits—and, perhaps, winning employer sanction for SEIU organizing.
...for more background, please visit the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee’s new site, ServingEmployersInsteadofUs.
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.
That's right, PacifiCare was shamed by you and the immense outpouring of citizen outrage and activism, into authorizing the medically necessary treatment for Nick Colombo.
Here's a brief clip from the demonstration yesterday at the headquarters of PacifiCare in Cypress, California.
As you read this, keep in mind the power of citizen outrage and citizen activism. I've been told in several emails that our power is being carefully scrutinized by the insurance industry, they're even getting rather nervous.
The sleeping giant American people are finally waking up.
The healthcare crisis is not just bankrupting our economy—it is relentlessly impoverishing Americans. Recent data highlights cuts in wages, gaps in life expectancy, and a healthcare industry that looks more like Bear Stearns everyday. None of this will be solved until we make politicians get serious about health care reform.
We're facing an eerily similar situation. A phone call from you may help save another child's life from the depraved indifference of Pacificare. Who owns Pacificare? Who else? UnitedHealth.
Here's the background.
I've received several urgent emails from the heroes at California Nurses Association about this developing situation.
Today I'm going to tell you about Nick Columbo. Nick is only 17 years old and has Ewing’s Sarcoma (bone cancer). His insurer, Pacifi care death, is denying him a treatment which doctors think may save his life.
The family and the nurses are urgently appealing to the public to call PacifiCare at 714-828-1821 or Tyler Mason, the UnitedHealth/Pacificare spokesperson at 714-226-3530 and demand they provide the care Nick needs.
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.
