National Nurses United

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT public hospitals and clinics are on serious life support. As you can read in this issue, when we convened more than 150 public-sector nurses in Santa Clara, Calif. in February, group after group shared stories about cutbacks not only to their compensation and benefits, but to desperately-needed patient care services that working people, who are priced out of private insurance, rely on as their option of last resort. Some public systems are drastically scaling back or even considering closure. Nowhere is this situation more dire than in Chicago, where the Cook County Bureau of Health Services is moving forward with plans to cut 17 percent of the health system budget, slash hundreds of provider jobs, close hospital departments, and shutter about half of the Bureau's 26 community clinics. CNA/NNOC RNs who work for the Bureau are fighting like mad to maintain services for county residents, and report that the proposed cuts will literally spell death for many of their most vulnerable patients. Most of the problems public healthcare institutions face can be traced back to our country's failure to institute a national health insurance policy for all residents. Under this kind of single-payer plan, many public hospitals wouldn't be struggling with huge shortfalls due to treating greater proportions of uninsured patients and sicker patients who haven't been able to access primary or preventive care. Instead of establishing national health insurance, we've relied on a so-called system of private insurance, received mostly through our employers. But as you can read on page REGISTERED NURSE,™ (ISSN 1932-8966) The Journal of Patient Advocacy, March 2007 Volume 103/2 is published by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, 2000 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94612-2908. It provides news of organizational activities and reports on developments of concern to all registered nurses across the nation. It also carries general coverage and commentary on matters of nursing practice, community and public health, and healthcare policy. It is published monthly except for combined issues in January and February, and July and August. Periodicals postage paid at Oakland, California. POSTMASTER: send address changes to Registered Nurse, 2000 ™ Franklin Street, Oakland, CA 94612-2908. To send a media release or announcement, fax (510) 6630629. Registered Nurse™ is carried on the CNA/NNOC website at www.calnurses.org. 10, private health insurance doesn't work, either, because its agenda is to make money, not make us healthy. The Wilkes family has private health insurance through father Nathan's work, but his son Thomas will soon be kicked off the plan because he happened to be born with hemophilia and the insurance company thinks he costs too much to take care of. Stories like the Wilkes shout out the need for a single-payer system that covers everyone, no matter what your job, what illness you happened to be born with, what health disaster strikes you at whatever age. Our work as an organization also continues to roll on. We now have minimum staffing ratio bills pending in Texas, Maine, and Illinois. And we're still pushing hard to help pass SB 840, a California single-payer bill, and HR 676, a federal single-payer bill. Spring is here, and it's time to get jumping again because we have a lot of work ahead of us. Deborah Burger, RN CNA/NNOC president For permission to reprint articles, write to Editorial Office. To subscribe, send $40 ($45 foreign) to Subscription Department. California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee also produces California Nurse, which it ™ will continue to publish periodically. PLEASE CONTACT US WITH YOUR STORY IDEAS They can be about practice or management trends you've observed, or simply something new you've encountered in the profession. They can be about one nurse, unit, or hospital, or about the wider landscape of healthcare policy from an RN's perspective. They can humorous, or a matter of life and death. If you're a writer and would like to contribute an article, please let us know. Our contact information is in the masthead. executive editor Rose Ann DeMoro editor Lucia Hwang graphic design Jonathan Wieder communications director Charles Idelson contributors Hedy Dumpel, RN, JD photography Jaclyn Higgs, Tad Keyes editorial intern Bonnie Ho

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