Health Care Professionals Hit the Road for Public Option
October 20, 2009
GAINING SUPPORT – Cynthia Turner, a registered nurse employed by Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, Calif., watches as Glenn Nishimura of Little Rock, Ark., signs a letter urging Arkansas lawmakers to support health reform that includes a public option. (Photo Credit: Dan Limke)
Wearing scrubs with the slogan, “House Calls for Health Care,” dozens of doctors and nurses represented by AFSCME and affiliate unions went door-knocking over the past two weekends in nine key states. Their goal: increase pressure on lawmakers to pass a health reform bill that includes a public option.
The health care professionals took the case for real health care reform toArkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota and Ohio.
In addition to home visits, the doctors and nurses also held press conferences, spreading this message: A plan without a public option that would compete with health insurance companies and drive down costs is no reform at all.
Their efforts come on the heels of a recent survey of more than 550 members of California’s largest doctors’ union – the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (UAPD)/AFSCME Local 206 – that shows more than 80 percent of the union’s membership favors some form of public health insurance.
In Nebraska, registered nurse Mary Gallagher knocked on doors this past weekend because – she told a Lincoln Journal Star reporter – “We need real reform that keeps my patients’ health in the hands of their nurses and doctors and not their insurance companies.” Gallagher, who works at the Lincoln Regional Center, is a member of Nebraska Association of Public Employees (NAPE)/AFSCME Local 61.
In Ohio, registered nurse Tom Connelly of Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren went door-knocking and spoke at a press conference about the importance of a public option. Connelly, who is also president of AFSCME Local 2026 (Ohio Council 8), said, “I’m sick of insurance companies telling us how to do our jobs and what we can and cannot do to provide the best care for everyone.” Without a public option, he added, “all of this is just lip service and the insurance companies run business as usual.”
Valentina Zamora-Arreola, who works the night shift at Kaiser Permanente in Downey, Calif., traveled to Little Rock, Ark., to encourage reform. “There are many nights I’ll walk into a room where the patients are not worried as much about their health as how they’re going to pay for it.”
A member of AFSCME affiliate United Nurses Associations of California (UNAC)/UHCP/NUHHCE, Zamora-Arreola says a public health option is essential because “that’s what’s going to keep the costs low, it’s what will keep this whole plan manageable.”
Read more about AFSCME’s position on health care reform at MakeAmericaHappen.com and AFSCME.org.
