National Nurses United

RAD:May 10/15/08 9:37 PM Page 9 Rose Ann DeMoro Executive Director, CNA/NNOC Time for a New New Deal Our simple program for saving U.S. healthcare if the day after the election ever comes, there will be a mountain of proposals on what the new president-elect should do to rescue our rapidly imploding financial system. But, though the meltdown of our healthcare system has not attracted the TV lights and special sessions of Congress in the same manner as the Wall Street calamity, the crisis in our hospitals and homes across America is no less severe. Nurses will have a critical role to play in helping shape a bailout plan for safe patient care, a more humane healthcare system, and the ability of nurses to protect patients and all workers to defend their rights. We need to make sure the voices of nurses are heard, and press the next president to adopt a program that patients, nurses, and all working people and families need. If I were advising a President-elect Obama (assuming the current polling trends hold up), here's the program I'd recommend: I Guaranteed healthcare for every American I Assure the highest standard of care for all, starting with a national system of minimum, safe RN-to-patient ratios I Protect the right of workers to form unions Guaranteed Healthcare we don't have to reinvent the wheel. The building blocks are already there. Simply improve Medicare and expand it to cover everyone. As we've said over and over, it's the most comprehensive, cost-effective, and least bureaucratic way to fix our broken healthcare system while at the same time protecting patient choice of doctor, promoting prevention, and taking decisions about our care out of the hands of the insurance companies. For years we've heard the rhetoric and horror stories about "government-run" healthcare. But in the wake of the massive government intervention into the banking and financial system, it should be readily apparent now that when vital public interests are at stake, some of the old fears get pushed aside. OCTOBER 2008 the Bush administration's pro-management labor board to strip away the rights of workers who seek union representation in elections, or in decisions such as the Kentucky River attack on nurses who make clinical assignments. The creation of a vibrant middle class and the greatest prosperity of working Americans in our nation's history followed the greatest growth of unions in the 1940s and 1950s. The decline in union membership directly coincides with the erosion of living Ratios and a Single Standard of Care assuring people have access to care is one standards and the rise of income disparities critical step. Then we need to make sure that in our nation. One immediate step would be enactment there is one standard of care for everyone. No multi-tiered system based on ability to pay. of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) No substandard conditions from one hospital which would enable workers to join unions without the brutal employer harassment and or clinic to the next. Let's start with safe nursing care in hospi- intimidation so common today. Enacting EFCA tals. We need a nawould not guarantee tional standard of If we can bail a reversal of labor's minimum, specific out the financial specudecline, but it would RN-to-patient ratios lators and the banking be a good start, and in every hospital, in CEOs, why can't we do a revitalization of laevery state, in every the same for the tens of bor would make a unit, at all times. millions of Americans huge dent in the ecoA patient bill facing bankruptcy and nomic crisis faced of rights can certainhealthcare calamity due by so many families ly include other eleto the meltdown of our today. ments, including a healthcare system? On Nov. 4, Ameristrong, vital public can voters are faced safety net that assures that public hospitals and clinics have the with a stark choice on all these issues. For example, Obama has said that healthsame funding streams as the boutique clinics care "should be a right for every American." and surgery centers. Such reforms are essential to reverse the He supports nurse staffing ratios. And he has assault on patient care standards by corpo- said he would sign EFCA. McCain wants to expand the reach of the rate healthcare that puts patients at risk and drove thousands of RNs away from the bed- insurance industry in healthcare, his plan side. The solution to the nursing shortage would erode employer coverage, and he'd begins with RN ratios, and then extends to pay for it with a $1.3 trillion cut in Medicare improving overall patient care conditions as and Medicaid over the next 10 years. He wants to further deregulate patient protecwell as enhancing RN standards. tions and minimum standards. And McCain is attacking EFCA in his campaign. Protecting the Voice of RNs and Other Patients, nurses, families, and working Healthcare Workers rns need a collective voice to be able to people need a new New Deal. This simple advocate for patients. The last eight years program would be a welcome beginning. I have been characterized by a full-scale assault on the union rights of nurses and other work- Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of ing people. It's been most evident in efforts by CNA/NNOC. The millions of Americans who endure their pain away from the spotlight of Wall Street or the glare of TV lights deserve sweeping systemic solutions as well. If we can bail out the financial speculators and the banking CEOs, why can't we do the same for the tens of millions of Americans facing bankruptcy and healthcare calamity due to the meltdown of our healthcare system? W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G REGISTERED NURSE 9

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