Guaranteed Healthcare

Thank you Supervisor Tom Ammiano, CNA/NNOC endorsed candidate for State Assembly, for holding hearings to support HR 676, Medicare for All, on June 10th at 2pm.  It is time local elected's take a stand on the only real solution to financing our health care system in the nation.  Meanwhile, San Francisco's Mayor Newsom has introduced sweeping budgets cuts to Public Health including lay-offs and loss of 8 days of pay for all health workers including nurses.  Threatening, "He will remember" if we do not take the furloughing agreement, to save our services, he is also cutting funding for the homeless in the city's poorest district.

Kudos to Supervisor Tom Ammiano, CNA/NNOC's pick, in Assembly District 13, for holding needed hearings on real health care reform.  Tom has always been a great friend of CNA/NNOC nurses and will continue to fight hard in our State Assembly for SB 840 and single-payer health care.  Tom will be conducting hearings on this issue Friday and Saturday for an eventual vote before the Board on June 10th at 2pm.  I will be there on Saturday to give the Supes my two cents as to why this is the best remedy for our nation.  Anything else is just wasting time, money and more importantly, patient lives.  The band-aide approach of increasing mandatory, unaffordable universal health insurance pedaled by insurance lobbyists currently infesting our state and national capitols is more of the same dead end idea that will only dig us all deeper into debt and death.

 Tom's proposal is in stark contrast to our Mayor today who  announced his proposals to solve our deficit crisis by slashing programs and laying off many health care workers cutting back services to homeless patients and those with substance abuse problems  In addition, he wants nurses to accept a "furlough" of a least 8 days or day off with no pay to pay for our services. He even threatened that "He won't forgot" if we don't accept his deal.  Hey, I can survive and will donate my day without pay to CNA/NNOC and its drive for single-payer next year, but the reality is, if the nurse practitioner is furloughed in my case, there may not be a clinic, or two in my case.  Given our hiring freezes over the last year, we haven't been able to fill many nursing positions and have had to do more with less staff.  That might be "OK" for some politicians who might not be missed,  but a clinic or a hospital unit at a busy public health hospital where safe staffing is critical might mean the difference between life and death.

  So I will be there for patient care on June 10th. I will be holding our public officials accountable just like I  am everyday I take care of patients as a nurse.   I will also be there on June 19th at the Moscone Center at noon to hold the insurance corporations accountable too.  Hey, maybe our elected representatives and insurance corporations should be mandated to carry malpractice insurance, like every nurse, and  held legally liable when they harm a patient through the bad bills they pass and equally bad insurance plans they offer.