California Nurses Try to Tank Health Care

[courtesy of The California Majority Report]

It was a sad moment yesterday when California Nurses Association Executive Director Donna Gerber took the stand in the Senate Health Committee, where she broke with every other major union, consumer group, and medical group in the state and opposed comprehensive health care reform.
 
That's right, the nurses are opposing health care reform.
 
Gerber, who was trounced when she ran for the Assembly against Assemblymember Guy Houston (now we know why), testified that the Democratic health care bill was actually the Governor's bill. That was news to everyone in the hearing room, particularly since the Governor doesn't have a health care bill. And on top of that, Democrats pushing the bill have dropped what is the centerpiece of the Governor's proposal -- a mandate that requires every individual to buy health insurance. The Democratic proposal also is far more aggressive than the Governor's proposal in a number of other areas.
 
I wonder how the majority of nurses in California feel about their union funding efforts to defeat health care reform and being the only progressive group in the state to outright oppose legislation to insure 3.4 million Californians.

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