1199SEIU Nurses Join Final Push for Healthcare Bill
1199SEIU RNs from New York City joined thousands of health care activists on March 9 to confront one of the powerful groups opposing passage of a comprehensive health care reform bill.
Marching from DuPont Circle in Washington DC to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, the activists gathered in front of the site of the annual conference of America’s Health Insurance Plan, a lobbying group of the insurance industry. They represented more than 50 organizations, and included Andy Stern, president of SEIU, Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
“I work in a hospital where many of our patients cannot afford insurance,” said Fraudine Noel-Baptiste, an RN at Brookdale University Hospital in Brooklyn. “So they come to the emergency room, and this results in overcrowding. And without coverage, they cannot pay for their prescription drugs, they return sicker than ever.”
Noel-Baptiste has two children who finished college while covered by her 1199SEIU Benefit Plan. But now that they have graduated, they cannot afford coverage. Noel travelled from New York together with three other Brookdale nurses–Derl Flatts, Noreen Peters, Denise Cross.
Bernadette Carter, an RN from North General Hospital in Manhattan, charged that the insurance companies make “millions in profits on the bodies of the elderly, the chronically ill and poor American children.”
A week earlier on March 3, a group of 1199SEIU RNs were invited by the White House to listen to President Obama signal his Administration’s final push to enact a health care bill. Over the last year, after numerous legislative hearings, town hall meetings, speeches, polls and debates, Obama’s goal towards a final vote on the bill is expected within the next 10 days. He spoke before an audience of health care professionals to rally their support among their legislators. The invited RNs were Joyce Ashley and Linda Bock of 1199SEIU Maryland, and Norma Amsterdam and Clare Thompson of 1199SEIU New York.