Nurses From Across California Mobilizing for Huge May 8 Rally for Guaranteed Healthcare - Departing From: Los Angeles, San Diego, Bakersfield, Bay Area, Fresno, Eureka, Chico, Redding, etc.--Morning of May 8 - Local Nurses Available to Discuss Health Crisis and Progress

More that 1,000 nurses will travel from across California on May 8 to a massive Sacramento rally in support of guaranteed healthcare, including Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s bill SB840, and in opposition to Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposal to force all individuals to purchase private, for–profit insurance.  The RNs will be leaving their local communities between 5 and 9 in the morning, with final logistical details will be available on May 7, and will be available to discuss the local healthcare crisis as they board the busses or planes, as well as on-site in Sacramento. 

The rally is sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, which is working for passage of SB 840, to establish a system similar to “Medicare for All” with genuine universal coverage, comprehensive and uniform benefits, effective cost controls, and an end to insurance industry interference with delivery of care.

What: National Nurses’ Rally for Guaranteed Healthcare
When: Tuesday, May 8, 12 Noon
Where: California State Capitol, Sacramento

In conjunction with the event, CNA/NNOC will debut GuaranteedHealthcare.org, an online campaign that will feature videos of patients telling their stories of abuse, injury and mistreatment at the hands of a medical industry driven by corporate rather than human needs.  Patients will have the power to upload and share their own stories, a crucial tool in building a grassroots movement to stand up to the powerful insiders setting the terms of our national healthcare debate.

“Nurses have fought insurance companies, HMOs, hospital chains, and anyone else who would let our patients suffer from inadequate care. Genuine reform, like HR 676 or SB 840, is the only effective way to ensure we achieve the humane healthcare system Americans want and deserve,” said Deborah Burger, RN, and CNA/NNOC president. 

Both the May 8 rally and the patient videos featured at www.GuaranteedHealthcare.org will reflect the view held by the nurses of CNA/NNOC and patient activists that any healthcare reform must guarantee that all patients receive a single standard of high-quality healthcare for all. 

Many of the reforms proposed in today’s healthcare debate will have the opposite effect: mandating the purchase of private insurance, as has been advocated by Governors Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others, will only increase the percentage of care dollars going to industry overhead, while subjecting patients to an industry built on the denial of care.  By contrast, a single-payer reform, similar to Medicare for All, will allow patients to choose from among private doctors and hospitals who are paid from a national, non-profit risk pool.  As has been proven in developed nations around the world, this is the only way to guarantee healthcare for all.

Representing 75,000 RNs from California to Maine, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee is the fastest-growing association of direct-care RNs in the nation.  Learn more at www.CalNurses.org