Guaranteed Healthcare

Like a slow-motion earthquake the healthcare mess continues to roil the Golden State.  Just this week, California Governor pitches the lottery as his secret weapon for solving the healthcare crisis, Speaker Nunez makes clear why he has to keep taking so much money from health insurance corporations, and mega-chain Sutter Healthcare faces the largest nurses strike in a decade.

A picture beats a thousands words so just go look at this striking nurse.  Sutter was humiliated this week when 5,000 nurses walked off the job in a revolt against patterns of unsafe care by the chain, which pulled in $587 million in profits just last year.  RNs like Millicent Borland walked out because they are obligated to stand up for their patients. 

Heck—go check out all the pictures of the nurses.  At a dozen facilities, thousands of nurses partied, chanted, fought, and helped give new momentum to the labor movement and the healthcare movement in this incredibly important showdown.  If California nurses can clean up chains out here, patients across the country will get better care as a result.

Sutter responded today by locking out thousands of nurses trying to return to work after the strike.  Unfortunately for Sutter, the more they disrespect, disparage, and attack their nurses—the more momentum Milliecent and her RN colleagues will have in their patient and social activism.

Meanwhile, tough times for Sutter’s ally Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.  He finally coughed up a plan to fund his plan to force Californians to purchase private and unreliable health insurance products.  Arnold’s brainstorm: a lottery!  On the one hand it makes sense, because he’s gambling with patient health.  On the other hand, what he’s really doing is cutting education funds to subsidize his corporate insurance donors, and that’s just not right.

Arnold is negotiating with his ally, Speaker Fabian Nunez, to come up with a plan that will be acceptable to both the Republican and Democratic wings of the insurance lobby.  And now we know why Speaker Nunez is so desperate to stay in the good graces of his insurance industry donors…he’s a shopaholic:

Núñez's expenses - covered by campaign funds - include $8,745 at the Hotel Arts in Barcelona, Spain; $5,149 for a meeting at a wine seller in France's Bordeaux region; and $2,562 for office expenses at Louis Vuitton, a Parisian store that specializes in leather goods, clothing, fashion accessories and jewelry, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Sounds like we need him outta the mall and off the insurance industry payroll.

Finally...A new story finds that even kids with private insurance aren’t getting the care they need.  The tribulations of the Frost family make clear why we need guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model, although unfortunately the leading Democratic presidential candidates all seem to have given up hope for that.  Maybe they should take a look at Taiwan, which has given itself a tremendous economic boost by moving to a single-payer system…based on U.S. Medicare!