Monday Morning: Hundreds of Nurses Stage Emergency Mobilization at Capitol

Day One Of National Nurses Convention in Sacramento

California Legislature to Consider Insurance Industry Giveaway Masquerading as Healthcare Reform

8:30 a.m. Nurses March from Convention Center to Capitol, Will Visit Every Legislator in Bid to Block Flawed Bill

Hundreds of Registered Nurses, delegates from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee’s national convention meeting in Sacramento, will stage an emergency mobilization at the state Capitol Monday morning to urge state legislators to reject a healthcare deal that they say provides more relief for big insurers than for California families.

The nurses will leave the Sacramento Convention Center at 8:30 am for a march to the Capitol.  Once inside the Capitol, delegations of nurses will visit every legislator requesting them to vote against Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez’ bill, AB 8, which they say would do little to resolve the state’s growing healthcare crisis – instead rewarding the insurance companies that created the current healthcare morass.

Nunez and some allies are engaged in a huge last minute push to pass the bill as a prelude to negotiations with Gov Arnold Schwarzenegger on a final package that the nurses say:

• Fails to control runaway healthcare costs. There are no limits on rising premiums, co-pays, deductibles or other costs that place increasing numbers of Californians at risk.
• Lets insurance companies continue to deny medical coverage to the sickest patients, who would instead be dumped into a public pool that would likely soon be bankrupted.

Monday’s mobilization comes on the heels of a broad-based public information campaign by CNA/NNOC alerting the public to the dangers posed by the flawed Nunez-Schwarzenegger approach, as well as recent polling finding that this approach, if opposed by the nurses, is supported by only 25 per cent of likely voters. 

“Legislators need to realize they are voting on a life and death issue, and a vote for the Nunez-Schwarzenegger approach endangers our patients,” said Deborah Burger, RN, President of the CNA/NNOC.  “A flawed approach failing to solve the fundamental problems of our healthcare system is not reform. Our patients and our families need guaranteed healthcare, not another backroom deal.”

CNA/NNOC represents 75,000 RNs in all 50 states, and is a leader in the national campaign for genuine healthcare reform as embodied in HR 676 in Congress, and a pioneer in winning legislative patient protections and collective bargaining contracts that have set new standards for nurses across the nation.  For more information about CNA/NNOC, see www.calnurses.org.