California Nurses Association Condemns Health Insurance Lobby Attack On Healthcare Reform

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/12142

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on October 12, 2009 - 3:34pm
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By Doug Cunningham

As the U.S. Senate Finance Committee votes Tuesday on its version of health care reform, the California Nurses Association is condemning an insurance industry anti-reform attack campaign. The nation's largest union of registered nurses says the industry's threatened massive increase in the cost of family health insurance policies is an outrageous threat from one of the richest industries in America. The insurance lobby group America's Health Insurance Plans released a study that it financed claiming family health insurance premiums would rise to an average of $21.300 a year if the Senate Finance Committee bill is adopted. California Nurses Association executive director Rose Ann DeMoro says legislators should stop coddling what she calls a "useless industry whose sole function is to make enormous profits from the pain and suffering of patients while providing little in return." DeMoro says as it stands the Senate Finance Committee bill constitutes a "stunning, massive bailout of the insurance industry" by requiring people to buy health insurance. The California Nurses Association says the real problem is private insurance's failure to provide affordable coverage for all. That's why the union supports the Medicare for all bill, which is coming up for a House vote later this month.