National Nurses United

RAD:1 7/9/07 1:20 PM Page 11 Rose Ann DeMoro Executive Director, CNA/NNOC No Turning Back SiCKO has opened the eyes of the public to the ills of the insurance industry and why it's got to go " w h o a r e w e? " asks Michael Moore midway through SiCKO. "Is this what we've become?" In his compelling portrait of our national healthcare nightmare, Moore has issued a ringing challenge to all of us, and nurses across America are answering the call. Tens of thousands of RNs have responded to our invitation to participate in activities around SiCKO and our campaign to transform healthcare. In the first weekend alone, CNA/NNOC RNs stood outside nearly 50 theaters from California to Maine handing out flyers and talking to movie audiences about what we can all do together to fix our broken healthcare system. We're just getting started. For America's nurses, the patients and families so painfully depicted in SiCKO are not mere anecdotes or abstractions. They are the daily experience of nurses who must battle to get patients the appropriate medical care, respect, and dignity all of us deserve. As a Phoenix RN, Tracy Chavez told the Arizona Republic at one of our "Scrubs for SiCKO" events: "Those who have never had any health issues, they really have no clue how bad our health system can be. Those who have never been exposed to the system will be appalled by what they see." A San Antonio RN, Maureen Hogan, told her hometown paper, the Express-News, how the film, and our campaign, have affected her and her colleagues: "We have come home energized and ready to work in support of a single-payer system. San Antonio registered nurses will not go away quietly. Not when we see a human life cast aside in favor of insurance companies' profits." Then there are the reports of skeptics, especially those who have distrusted or disliked Michael Moore in the past, who've been profoundly moved by SiCKO. Here's a story from Dallas, forwarded to us by a woman whose especially heartbreakJUNE 2007 ing story is depicted in the film. It was sent to her by a friend, about a stereotypical Texas man complaining to his wife about being dragged to see the film: "Somewhere along the way, maybe at the half way point, right before my ears, Sicko changed this man's mind. (Soon) he, along with the rest of the audience were breaking into spontaneous applause. He stopped poohpoohing the movie and started shoutingout 'hell yeah!' at the screen...It was as if the whole world had been flipped upside down. But here these people were, complete strangers from every walk of life talking excitedly about the movie." After the film ended, many in the audience picked up the discussion with strangers in the lobby. "The conversation stopped The advocates of the profit-driven approach to medical care are not used to hearing an alternative spelled out in public, in our popular culture, and they don't like it. Audiences will remember Donna and Larry Smith, who were insured but had to sell their home and move into a storage room in their daughter's house because the co-pays and deductibles for their medical bills drove them to bankruptcy. "They worked all their life, and ended up with nothing simply because they had the misfortune to get sick," said Moore in a Congressional briefing last month with Donna Smith and two dozen RNs behind him on the dais. They'll remember Julie Pierce, who works in a hospital intensive care unit whose insurance company and her employer re- "Somewhere along the way, maybe at the halfway point, right before my ears, SiCKO changed this man's mind… In all my thirty years on this earth, I have never ever seen any movie have this kind of unifying effect on people. It was like I was standing there, at the birth of a new political movement." instantly as all eyes in this group of 30 or 40 people were now on (someone who said): 'If we just see this and do nothing about it, then what's the point? Something has to change.' Suddenly everyone was scribbling down everyone else's email, promising to get together and do something. In all my thirty years on this earth, I have never ever seen any movie have this kind of unifying effect on people. It was like I was standing there, at the birth of a new political movement." They're not alone. SiCKO is breaking down doors, and beckoning new ideas into the room. We really can guarantee universal, comprehensive healthcare for everyone and push the insurance companies out of the way. It's not even a new idea. Much of the rest of the world has done it, at less cost, with as good or better patient outcomes. If you've noticed the rising clamor from the defenders of the status quo, that is why. W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G fused to pay for a life-saving bone marrow transplant for her husband, Tracy, because they deemed it "experimental." They'll remember the words of whistleblower Lee Einer, who used to specialize in how to deny claims. "It's not unintentional. It's not a mistake. It's not an oversight. You're not slipping through the cracks. They made the crack and are sweeping you toward it." And, those moviegoers, like the people in Dallas who were busy exchanging e-mails, are likely to take a long, unforgiving look at those who think they can solve this problem by throwing even more money at those same insurers. From town to town, everywhere where there are nurses, someone will be there to help drive that message home. The door is open and we are not turning back. I Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of CNA/NNOC. REGISTERED NURSE 11

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