Guaranteed Healthcare

Families making tough decisions about babies and birthing and living the American dream as the for-profit healthcare system gobbles up personal choice and freedom.

One more irony about the healthcare crisis: the politicians in charge of fixing it…are guaranteed healthcare through a system that is not just “single-payer” (in terms of being financed by the government instead of insurance companies), but beyond is actually government-run.

Nurses are running ads today in 10 Iowa newspapers pointing out that this means that Dick Cheney, with his heart trouble, would probably be dead now if he were an ordinary American forced to search for cardiac care in a thicket of mercenary insurers and heartless HMOs.  Cheney gets guaranteed healthcare; we get squat.

See the Cheney Ad in PDF here

We’ll take a look below, also at some recent highlights from the healthcare movement…

Check out this video I shot at the Yearly KOS Convention in Chicago where I interviewed random bloggers about the need for HR 676 (Conyers) - SINGLE PAYER Healthcare for everyone in America. I blogged from the convention last week about the workshops I attended, how diversity had dramatically increased from the first Yearly KOS in Vegas, and how healthcare relates to cultural diversity, video production, and union organizing.

Colette Washington here! I’m the webmaster for the California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC).  I also write and perform political songs (including "Healthcare Justice"), and produce online videos for CNA/NNOC. You may have seen the "About Time for 89" music video. Either way, check out our YouTube channel.  I’m here at the Yearly Kos Convention in Chicago mixing it up with bloggers and political activists from around the globe. It’s been an amazing experience running into people I met at last year’s event in Vegas, and meeting new folks this year with fire in their eyes and passion in their hearts.

Now you don't have to have seen SiCKO to know that if there is one area of human endeavor where private enterprise doesn't work, it's health care. Consider the private, profit-making, insurance industry that Bush is so determined to defend. What "innovations" has it produced? The deductible, the co-pay, and the pre-existing condition are the only ones that leap to mind.

New Report Details Healthcare Industry’s Massive Spending in Presidential Campaign, Federal Lobbying - Findings Coincide with Release of “SiCKO” and Call For End to Insurance Interference with Nation’s Healthcare.  Massive spending by the healthcare industry is swamping the nation’s political process, according to the findings of a new report issued by the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy (IHSP). The new report,  Market Based Healthcare: Big Money, Politics, and the Unraveling of U.S. Civil Democracy, coincides with the premiere of Michael Moore’s new documentary "SiCKO," a searing indictment of the U.S. healthcare system opening nationwide June 29.

 Download the new report here (2.87 MB)

Nurses take their work very seriously but they also love to have fun as you'll see in this creative new YouTube show dubbed "ACCESS HEALTHCARE" which borrows a few ideas from "Access Hollywood," "ET," "Extra," and the like. Go backstage with Michael Moore, experience the buzz around his new movie SiCKO, see the latest RN fashions, and JOIN the movement for guaranteed healthcare in America.

Click here to see the first edition of "ACCESS HEALTHCARE" on YouTube and join us June 29th