National Nurses United

NewsBriefs_MAy 6/2/11 3:11 PM Page 8 NEWS BRIEFS Children's Hospital RNs Strike to Defend Healthcare Options CALIFORNIA n may, rns who specialize in caring for sick babies and kids at Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, Calif. went on strike for five days to hold the line against major healthcare takeaways that their employer wants to impose on the contract they are now negotiating. About 800 RNs work at the facility. The healthcare cuts would require some RNs with families to pay as much as $4,000 a year in premiums, increase deductibles and copays, and ultimately make it prohibitively expensive for some nurses to have their children treated at the hospital where they work. In order to avoid the added burden of paying more, many nurses have switched to the hospital's Kaiser plan and, as a consequence, had to give up longtime doctors and the option of having their kids cared for at Children's. Nurses also point out that the hospital's healthcare package is inferior to other nearby private hospitals' healthcare options, I What do the cuts mean for you? Wendy Bloom, an outpatient RN at Children's, is on her employer's current PPO plan, but has been dismayed by the surprise out-of-pocket costs. At age 56, she finds herself procrastinating a colonoscopy because she's afraid how much the procedure will cost her. "Every time I go to the doctor, I feel very insecure and am wondering, 'How much is this going to cost me?'" She can't afford the premiums under her employer's proposed healthcare plan; she would rather switch to Kaiser Permanente even though it means finding a new doctor, dealing with a new system, and giving up the neurologist that she's seen for 25 years for her migraines. 8 N AT I O N A L N U R S E making it difficult to retain and attract experienced and qualified nurses to work at Children's Hospital. One health plan proposed by the hospital has a $12,000 annual deductible; $24,000 if the nurse's coverage includes a spouse or partner. RNs say they believe that Children's Hospital is using the current recession as an excuse for demanding these healthcare takeaways, and that conceding would be just the first step toward a rapidly deteriorating Sherry Hickok, a radiology RN at Children's, has six kids. Her entire family depends on her health plan. Justin, her eldest at age 15, is severely disabled. Since he was 3 years old, Justin has been cared for and followed by a team of doctors and nurses at Children's Hospital that encompasses multiple specialties. Switching from their current PPO to Kaiser is not an option. "It would be ridiculous to move," said Hickok. Under her employer's proposed changes, Hickok would pay at least an extra $4,600 a year, on top of other out-of-pocket expenses that might arise. She already spends nearly $6,000 a year on treatments for a son with autism and another with ADHD. Besides her regular job, Hickok also has a second job at a home healthcare agency to support her family. "I'm already strug- W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G healthcare benefit. The healthcare changes would save the hospital less than $1 million in the Children's Hospital budget, yet the hospital made more than $18 million according to its 2009 federal tax returns. More recent state figures from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development peg the hospital's net revenue for the fourth quarter of 2010 at $18.7 million. Most notably, the $1 million that the hospital alleges it would have saved through takeaways has already been spent twice over by administration during the two strikes on strikebreaker nurses and their airfare, hotel rooms, meals, ground transportation, and extra security staff. Determined to maintain their healthcare benefit standards, nurses walked the picket line outside the hospital for five days, waving signs reading "Chop from the top" and "Some cuts never heal." On Mother's Day, nurses walked the picket line with their children, who carried pint-sized picket signs reading "My mom's healthcare is my healthcare." —Staff report gling financially," she said. "It's really sad that I work at Children's, but they're making it so hard and making us pay so much to have my kids seen there." Aday Godinez Robinson, a neonatal intensive care unit RN, used to be on her employer's HMO option. But when that plan changed to a PPO where nurses are responsible for a percentage of each visit, meds, and meeting the deductible, the single mom of two teens with chronic asthma discovered that the PPO was too expensive. Last year, she switched them all to the Kaiser plan. "To me, it's a huge loss," said Robinson. "I work there and I know the doctors and nurses there. It gave me peace of mind and was my safety net. But I had no choice. I couldn't afford it." M AY 2 0 1 1

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