Family Health Plus
Metro NY Health Care for all, NYS Health Care Campaign, SEIU/1199, and the Greater NY Hospital Association have been working to expand affordable health insurance options for moderate and lower income New Yorkers. Their plan is called Family Health Plus and it would 1) expand the state's successful Child Health Plus program to include uninsured adult up to 250% of the poverty level, and 2) stabilize the private insurance market for middle-income people who don't get coverage from their job but buy it on their own.

It has been surprisingly successful. In June the NYS Assembly passed its Health Care Reform Act 2000 proposal committing to using 90% of the state share of the $1 million/year tobacco settlement for health coverage. This included a limited version of Family Health Plus. However, the Governor and NYS Senate have made no commitments or proposals. If interested in helping, contact metrohealth@igc.org

Nurse-Patient Ratios
Nurses all over the nation are watching the California Legislature's debate of a bill that would mandate safe nurse-patient ratios. California has the dubious honor of having the lowest nurse-patient ratio in the country but hospitals throughout the US are close behind.
Cutbacks in the number of professional nurses who provide inpatient hospital care have led to a point of crisis. Nurse live with the result of this crisis daily. Sometimes at the end of the shift, they realize thy have had almost no contact with the people who are in the hospital precisely because they need a professional nurse. Feeling quilty but helpless to change the situation, many nurses have chosen to leave their profession rather than provide inadequate care, and bright young people are avoiding the profession.
Insurers are squeezing the hospitals to cut the cost of inpatient care. To survive, hospitals are gambling that the patient will not suffer a complication because there are often not enough nurses availabe to pick up the symptome if they do. And little attention is paid to the comfort, teaching and emotional support that acutely ill patients need in a healthe care environment that increasingly devalues basic dignity.
Nurses and patients are pawerless to fight insurance companies and hospital systems alone. Goverments must act to protect patients. Nurses and patients are watching the California legislature for leadership to public safety For more information, contact metrohealth@igc.org

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