National Nurses United

"She represents that which is best in social and political activism," said Beatty in a speech to a CNA convention. "As an activist, she picks her spots so wisely, and with such prescience that she's simply ahead of the curve, on the cut- ting edge of the public's social conscience with a drive and dedication that gives her col- leagues faith in doing the right thing, and the conviction that if it's right, it's not only possible, it's fun." Though RoseAnn seldom seeks rewards, many have noticed. In 2001, MSN listed her as number five among the nation's "10 most influential women." More.com, an online national magazine for women, named RoseAnn "one of the most influential women you've never heard of." Modern Healthcare, a healthcare trade magazine, named RoseAnn as one of the nation's "100 most influential people in healthcare" for 15 straight years. In recent years, RoseAnn and the nurses were probably best known for being the red-shirted nurses seen everywhere in Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 campaign for president, and for playing the starring role in making single-payer healthcare a defining elec- toral issue. In many ways, all the threads of what RoseAnn and the union she built came together in the Sanders campaign. He ran "on our pro- gram," RoseAnn liked to say, including Medicare for all, the Wall Street tax, and the strongest support for unions and workers by a major party presidential candidate, probably ever. The Sanders campaign brought together so many social change issues and had great resonance for nurses, Kennedy notes. "You can't just be [isolated] in a hospital or clinic setting, you have to have a world to live in." NNU members helped popularize Sanders' message, campaign- ing across the United States, often in bright red buses adorned with his image and nurses, and often standing with him on stage. Guaranteed healthcare for all has long been a signature issue for RoseAnn and nurses. One year after RoseAnn was named executive director, CNA sponsored a California single-payer initiative, Prop. 186, which only lost when the insurance industry unloaded its bank vaults to oppose it, and sponsored repeated legislative efforts in the following years. "Single payer is at the core of the fundamental principles that have defined this union," says Griffing. But after years of politicians avoiding genuine universal care as a result of bullying by the healthcare industry, the combination of CNA/NNU work and the Sanders campaign which popularized Medicare for all has not only raised the issue's profile, it has made single payer almost a touchstone for Democratic candidates. "More viable candidates are running on support for single-payer at all levels of government—federal, state and local—than at any time before in U.S. history," says RoseAnn. "For the first time in U.S. history, a majority of House Democrats are cosponsors on the single-payer bill and 17 senators have announced their support. We have single-payer bills introduced in several state legislatures, including California, Maryland, Iowa, New York, and elsewhere," she continues. "That's enormously significant and it's all because of the grassroots movement we have been build- ing as well as elected leaders like Bernie." "When the U.S. joins the rest of the industrialized world in guar- anteeing healthcare to all through a single-payer system," says Sanders, "it will be fully recognized that RoseAnn and NNU were leaders in helping make that happen." RoseAnn's legacy will continue with both the amazing organization she built and grew, under the direction of Castillo, who has led in every phase of the organization's work, along with an ever-evolving but ever- consolidated nurse and CNA/NNOC and NNU leadership bodies, and a staff she calls the "unsung heroes" of the organization's work. "The organization is kind of set in stone in how we're going to fight for social justice as an organization," DeMoro told the Chronicle. 18 N A T I O N A L N U R S E 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 J A N U A R Y | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 "She'll fight anybody: insurance companies, HMOs, Republicans, Democrats. Like a mother bear protecting her cubs from attack, if you try and bully nurses and patients, with RoseAnn DeMoro you've picked a fight with the Mommy Bear."

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