Historic Rally for Healthcare: 2,000 Demand Guaranteed Healthcare - Nurses, School Employees, Activists rally for SB 840
2,000 nurses, school employees, community activists, and patients rallied at the California state Capitol Tuesday for genuine healthcare reform, and to demand Arnold Schwarzenegger end the state's healthcare crisis by signing SB 840.
Sen. Sheila Kuehl's bill, SB 840 would guarantee healthcare for all Californians with a single-payer model similar to Medicare for All. This historic rally is believed to be the largest for a specific healthcare plan in American history, and underscores the fact that single-payer style plans are the only one with a built-in, active constituency dedicated to their passage.
The rally was sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, with broad participation by the California School Employees Association and a wide variety of labor, religious, and community groups.
Drawing loud cheers, Kuehl told the crowd that “universal healthcare doesn't mean some people. It doesn't even mean most people. It doesn't mean some of the time, and it doesn't mean when you can afford it--or not. That is not universal healthcare....Blue Cross is double cross! Blue Shield is no shield!"
Zenei Cortez, RN, CNA/NNOC vice president noted that, "Nurses are standing up and saying 'no more.' Together we can end the pain and suffering and heartache, inflicted on our patients by cruel and heartless healthcare corporations who care only about one thing: the bottom line."
Also addressing the rally were leaders of the California Federation of Teachers, California Professional Firefighters, California Faculty Association, California Alliance for Retired American, California Council of Churches Church IMPACT, Consumer Federation of California, Health Care for All, and the California Physicians Alliance.
The rally is the first in a campaign to force state and national leaders to respond to the public's desperate appeals for genuine healthcare reform. In addition, CNA/NNOC is launching a new Web site (www.GuaranteedHealthcare.org), planning a statewide mobile phone banking tour to allow nurses to call their legislators, and sending out informational mail to targeted voters.
CNA/NNOC has sharply criticized the proposal by Gov. Schwarzenegger which would force uninsured Californians to buy health insurance which would saddle many Californians with substandard, unaffordable policies while reinforcing the same profit-driven insurers that are behind the current crisis.
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
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