Nursing Organizations Support Medicare Expansion Bill
By Debra Wood, RN, contributor
Nurses from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee traveled to Washington recently to meet with 50 key Congressional staff members to show their support for legislation to expand Medicare and to present the findings of a new study that indicates extending Medicare coverage to all Americans would create 2.6 million new jobs, paying $100 billion in wages.
“Medicare is a proven system that works and is much more cost effective than the privately administered systems we have in this country,” said Geri Jenkins, RN, co-president of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), who worked for 30 years as a critical care nurse at the University of California, San Diego Medical Center. “Medicare provides a single standard of care for everyone. We think it’s a great way to get to a single-payer, universal system that would cover everyone.”
Joanna Thompson, RN, a member of CNA/NNOC in Houston, Texas, decided to campaign for expanding Medicare and House bill 676, introduced by U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Michigan), after caring for frequently readmitted, uninsured patients whose conditions kept deteriorating, necessitating hospital level care. They could not afford medications or follow up as an outpatient without health insurance.
“Instead of visiting a physician’s office, they were occupying a hospital bed,” said Thompson, who called the current system discriminatory. “I don’t see why some people are entitled to better health care because of their position or the money they make.”
Expanding Medicare would allow people to continue receiving care with their existing providers and hospitals. A payroll tax would fund the expansion. And no health care dollars would go to pay for marketing by insurers.
“You’d have total choice,” Jenkins said.
The Institute for Health & Socio-Economic Policy in consultation with economics consultant Robert Fountain, prepared a report “Single Payer/Medicare for All: An Economic Stimulus Plan for the Nation.” The research team concluded that expanding Medicare payments to all Americans would cost an additional $63 billion. Adding only the rolls of uninsured would cost $44 billion, but the plan would generate $317 billion in business and public revenues.
“There’s a ripple effect,” said Jenkins, explaining that it takes into effect more than just health delivery, such as maintenance of facilities, provision of utilities and production of supplies used in the delivery of care. “We thought that was a good way to start looking at it.”
Expanding Medicare also would create 2.6 million new permanent jobs at an average annual wage of $38,262. The team estimates 734,490 of those jobs would be skilled health care positions.
CNA/NNOC called the study the first of its kind to analyze the economic benefits of health care and how sweeping reform could help drive the nation’s economic recovery.
The American Nurses Association also supports universal health coverage but did not respond to requests for information about whether it favors this bill. Several health care reform proposals are under consideration.
Both CNA/NNOC nurses urge their peers to get involved and share their experiences with their elected officials.
“As professional nurses, we are highly educated and we need to step up and make our patients’ needs known,” Thompson says.
Jenkins considers lobbying Congress a natural fit for nurses because nurses are on the front line of delivery of care.
“A big part of our job is patient advocacy,” Jenkins said. “And it’s an easy transition to go from advocating for their patients at the bedside to advocating for the patients in the community.”
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