National Nurse Leaders to Comment on Court Ruling

WASHINGTON, June 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Leaders of the nation's premier and largest union and professional association of registered nurses will be available to speak to media immediately upon release of the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act.

To arrange interviews, contact Charles Idelson, 510-273-2246 or 415-559-8991 or Carl Ginsburg, 917-405-1060

In advance of the decision, the 175,000-member National Nurses United, with members across the U.S., this week began a three-week bus tour across California, holding free health screenings and town hall meetings where community members are invited to tell their healthcare stories.

What prompted the screenings and tour is the daily experience of direct-care RNs who every day see the somber reality that the healthcare crisis is continuing, and is likely to continue regardless of how the court rules.

NNU supports expansion and upgrading of Medicare to cover everyone.

In the past year, nurses have been especially alarmed at what they see as broad declines in health and living standards for substantial segments of the U.S. population that are directly linked to the persistent economic crisis.  

Experiences in the California tour to date verify these experiences. Nurses report seeing scores of people in every community who haven't been able to afford a doctor's visit in years. In San Bernardino, RNs talked to a man who can't pay for medication even though his blood sugar measured dangerously high.  In Santa Ana, nurses screened another man who was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect as a child and hadn't seen a doctor in seven years. 

At the town hall meetings, nurses hear more devastating stories of working people who are denied treatment by health insurance companies or can't afford coverage at all.    

In addition, next week eight real-life stars of Michael Moore's 2007 film on the healthcare crisis, SiCKO, will hold a five-year reunion in Philadelphia. Titled "Still SiCKO After All These Years," a public event will be held on Saturday, June 30 at 7 p.m. at Plays and Players Theater, 1714 Delancey Street, in Philadelphia. Moore is also scheduled to speak. For information on that event, contact Donna Smith, one of the stars of the film, who is also currently on the California tour, at 773-617-4493.

SOURCE National Nurses United