Guaranteed Healthcare

After operating nearly a century as a public safety net, Grady Health System, one of the nation's largest public health systems which includes the largest hospital in Georgia, was privatized this May. Rita Valenti, a Grady RN and NNOC member, explains in her story, which was first published in the June issue of Registered Nurse, how corporate interests swooped in on an institution that has been systematically starved of the funds needed to care for the lowest-income Georgians. What happened to Grady stands in stark contrast to the Cook County Bureau of Health Services in Chicago, whose nurses are represented by CNA/NNOC. There, the RNs and allies, through their collective power and influence, successfully lobbied for more independent oversight of the system without relinquishing public control and the public mission.

In this essay, CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro spotlights a way that California can jumpstart the single-payer movement for the entire country: California legislators, the majority of whom have already voted in support of establishing single-payer for the state, should organize the two-thirds vote needed to override Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's likely veto of similar legislation this year.

Juanita Anderson, a retiree living in Los Angeles, never imagined that in her later years she would suffer from an incurable disease, nor that she'd be so afraid of losing her healthcare benefits. Even with retiree healthcare, she spends almost all her financial resources on managing her disease. Yet she knows life would be even worse if she lost her retiree health -- a very real possibility for millions of Americans as companies cut costs by reneging on promises to former employees. Check out Anderson's story as published in the April 2008 issue of Registered Nurse magazine.