WASHINGTON - May 8 - A broad-based coalition of some 2,000 healthcare activists will stage a historic May 8 rally in Sacramento in support Sen. Sheila Kuehl’s ground-breaking SB840, which proposes guaranteed healthcare on a single-payer model, and against Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposal to increase insurance industry revenue and control over healthcare.

The rally is sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee in conjunction with the California School Employees Association, California Federation of Teachers, California Professional Firefighters, California Faculty Association, California Alliance for Retired American, California Council of Churches Church IMPACT, Consumer Federation of California, Health for All, and the California Physicians Alliance. State Sen. Sheila Kuehl will address the rally and call for the passage of her bill

SB 840 to establish a guaranteed healthcare system similar to “Medicare for All” with genuine universal coverage, comprehensive and uniform benefits, effective cost controls, and an end to insurance industry interference with delivery of care.

What: Massive Rally for Guaranteed Healthcare
When: Tuesday, May 8, 12 Noon
Where: California State Capitol North Steps, Sacramento

“Nurses have fought insurance companies, HMOs, hospital chains, and anyone else who would let our patients suffer from inadequate care. Genuine reform, like SB 840, is the only effective way to ensure we achieve the humane healthcare system Americans want and deserve,” said Deborah Burger, RN, and CNA/NNOC president.

“Sadly, many of the school employees I work with never get to see a nurse. That’s because they don’t have health insurance. Over the past two decades, thousands of school employees throughout our state have lost their school district health benefits. Our schools and colleges are being squeezed by outrageous insurance rate hikes, and like everyone else they are paying more money for fewer benefits,” said Michael Mazzanti, from CSEA. Mazzanti is the lead custodian for Cloverdale High School in Sonoma County. He serves on the board of directors of the California School Employees Association as the Area B director.

In conjunction with the event, CNA/NNOC will debut GuaranteedHealthcare.org, an online campaign that will feature videos of patients telling their stories of abuse, injury and mistreatment at the hands of a medical industry driven by corporate rather than human needs. Patients will have the power to upload and share their own stories, a crucial tool in building a grassroots movement to stand up to the powerful insiders setting the terms of our national healthcare debate.

Both the May 8 rally and the patient videos featured at www.GuaranteedHealthcare.org will reflect the view held by the nurses of CNA/NNOC and patient activists that any healthcare reform must guarantee that all patients receive a single standard of high-quality healthcare for all.

Many of the reforms proposed in today’s healthcare debate will have the opposite effect: mandating the purchase of private insurance, as has been advocated by Governors Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others, will only increase the percentage of care dollars going to industry overhead, while subjecting patients to an industry built on the denial of care. By contrast, a single-payer reform, similar to Medicare for All, will allow patients to choose from among private doctors and hospitals who are paid from a national, non-profit fund. As has been proven in developed nations around the world, this is the only way to guarantee healthcare for all. In addition to SB 840, CNA/NNOC supports U.S. Rep. John Conyers’ similar national bill H.R. 676.

Representing 75,000 RNs from California to Maine, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee is the fastest-growing association of direct-care RNs in the nation. Learn more at www.CalNurses.org

Shum Preston
Communications Department
California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee
510-273-2276

Support Single-Payer Universal Healthcare
http://www.SinglePayer.com

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