INSIDE THIS UPDATE:

1. Robin Hood Rides in DC Next Week – Join Us!

2. HEAL DC – RNs Rally for Safe Ratios

3. REJECT CUTS to Social Security and Medicare!

4. California Charity Care Bill to Hold Hospitals Accountable

5. Massachusetts RNs protest for patient care

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Robin Hood Rides in DC Next Week – Join Us!

On April 20, Robin Hood will be marching from the IMF and World Bank to the US Treasury to demand a Robin Hood Tax in the U.S. We hope you can join us! On April 17 Congressmember Ellison (D-MN) will be holding a press conference to herald the reintroduction of The Inclusive Prosperity Act which calls for a Robin Hood Tax. Stay tuned for more on that.

In order to send a powerful message to the G20 Finance Ministers who will be meeting in DC in a few weeks, we need to ensure as big a mobilization as possible – and to do this we need your help to reach more people.

Can’t make it to DC? Join the Movement Online:

1. Like Robin on Facebook

2. Follow Robin on Twitter @RobinHoodTax and use the hashtag #TaxWallStreet

3. Sign-up for email alerts on our website

4. Visit our Facebook DC event page for details

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HEAL DC – RNs Rally for Safe Ratios

The participation of every nurse is needed at two upcoming events to demand passage of the Patient Protection Act to ensure minimum mandatory RN-to-patient ratios in DC’s hospitals.

Friday, April 19: Rally at Freedom Plaza
13th and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.
Buses will leave from the corner of 1st and Irving St., NW
at 4:45 p.m. and return by 6:45 p.m.

Tuesday, May 14: Hearing in the DC Council
Buses will leave from the corner of 1st and Irving St., NW
at 9:45 a.m. and return when the hearing ends.

Call 240-235-2000 or talk to your shop steward to reserve a seat on the bus.

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REJECT CUTS to Social Security and Medicare!

The largest U.S. organization of registered nurses, National Nurses United (NNU), issued its strongest warning today: Cuts in Social Security and Medicare would do harm to America’s elderly and disabled, vulnerable populations whose resources already place them in the margins. NNU called upon lawmakers to withdraw from all considerations of these cuts. Although Social Security contributes nothing to the federal deficit, Congress could increase revenue for the Social Security trust fund by raising the payroll tax income limit.

National Nurses United, 04/08/13 More »

TAKE ACTION: Tell the President NO CUTS to Social Security or Medicare:

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California Charity Care Bill to Hold Hospitals Accountable

Malinda Markowitz, RN and CNA Co-president

Time for Hospitals To Act as Good Corporate Citizens

Has therapeutic healing and recovery become a vanishing mission among California hospitals? Are California hospitals operating as big corporations more devoted to piling up cash than to assuring the delivery of care? A look at how California’s private, not-for-profit hospitals are meeting their responsibilities for providing charity care and community benefit programs suggests many have lost their way. —Malinda Markowitz Commentary, California Healthline, 04/09/13 More »

Bill to Hold Hospitals Accountable on Charity Care Passes First California Legislative Test

Legislation to press California non-profit hospitals to fulfill their charity care obligation in exchange for the substantial public financing they receive through their tax exempt status passed its first hurdle Tuesday in the California Assembly Health Committee overcoming opposition from California’s biggest hospital corporations and its allies. —California Nurses Association, 04/03/13 More »

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Massachusetts RNs protest for patient care

HAVERHILL — Nurses took to the street near Merrimack Valley Hospital in Haverhill yesterday to call attention to what they think is an alarming trend at some local hospitals. —The Eagle Tribune, 04/06/13 More »

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Thanks, and please FOLLOW US online at any/all of the links below!

National Nurses United

Robin Hood Tax Campaign

Tune in to NNU on Nurse Talk Radio

Malinda Markowitz
Co-president, California Nurses Association

Has therapeutic healing and recovery become a vanishing mission among California hospitals? Are California hospitals operating as big corporations more devoted to piling up cash than to assuring the delivery of care?

A look at how California’s private, not-for-profit hospitals are meeting their responsibilities for providing charity care and community benefit programs suggests many have lost their way.

In 2010 alone, not-for-profit hospitals pocketed $1.8 billion dollars in government subsidies through their tax breaks and other benefits above what they returned to patients in charity care, as documented in a California Nurses Association report based on public data.

Nearly half that total was recorded by just two of California’s biggest hospital chains, Kaiser Permanente and Sutter Health, which also happened to account for almost half of the 100 not-for-profit hospital executives who received pay packages of more than $1 million a year.

While many hospitals are no doubt good corporate citizens, these numbers undermine credibility for the hospital industry as a whole, especially when some apparently count marketing, cost-cutting and other dubious practices as their community benefit program.

Instead of opposing a common sense bill like AB 975, just as they have fought nearly every reform aimed at strengthening patient protections in California, hospital lobbyists should welcome this legislation as a way to restore public confidence that they are being genuinely transparent, accountable and acting in good faith in the delivery of charity care and community benefit.

California’s nurses salute Assembly members Bob Wieckowski and Rob Bonta for introducing AB 975. The bill is supported by California Nurses Association and an array of other labor and consumer groups, as well as elected leaders who believe we need common standards and a level playing field with equal expectations for all not-for-profit hospitals that reap the rewards of their tax exempt status.

Regrettably, implementation of the Affordable Care Act will not end the health care crisis. We continue to see patients skipping needed medical treatment, cutting prescription pills in half, unable to pay exorbitant hospital bills and facing huge out-of-pocket costs for insurance they can barely use.

Until we can achieve more far-reaching health reform, it is more important than ever for hospitals to compete in providing appropriate and equitable levels of charity care and community benefit, and not in who can most resemble Lehman Brothers or Goldman Sachs

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