Nurses Criticize Clinton's Attack on Single Payer

OAKLAND, Calif., Nov. 18, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- National Nurses United, the largest U.S. organization of nurses, condemned the Hillary Clinton campaign today for its attack on Sen. Bernie Sanders' proposal for healthcare for all, including its slanted use of data on the economics of Medicare for all.

"Any politician that refuses to finance guaranteed health care has abandoned my patients, and I will never abandon my patients. That's why we support improved Medicare for all, and that's why I support Bernie Sanders," said NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN.

"While the Affordable Care Act corrected some of the worst injustices in our insurance, profit-based healthcare system, the work of healthcare reform is far from done," said Ross. "Today, 33 million Americans remain uninsured. Tens of millions more remain underinsured, facing bankruptcy due to unpayable medical bills or the choice of getting the care they need or paying for food or housing for their families." 

"The only fix for our broken system once and for all is the prescription Bernie Sanders has so eloquently presented – joining the rest of the world by expanding and updating Medicare to cover everyone," Ross said.

NNU also criticized Clinton for citing a rightwing report first published in the Wall Street Journal on the inflated cost of $15 trillion to implement a Medicare for all system. The Journal report claimed as its source research by University of Massachusetts Amherst economics professor Gerald Friedman.

But Friedman himself has criticized the Journal report, noting in a Huffington Post column that the "economic benefits from Senator Sanders' proposal would create dynamic gains by freeing American businesses to compete without the burden of an inefficient and wasteful health insurance system."

Those include a "productivity boost coming from a more efficient health care system and a healthier population, [that] would raise economic output and provide billions of dollars in additional tax revenues to offset some of the additional federal spending," said Friedman. 

Friedman estimates nearly $10 trillion in savings while still reducing national health care spending by over $5 trillion. "With these net savings, the additional $14.7 trillion in federal spending brings savings to the private sector (and state and local governments) of over $19.7 trillion," Friedman wrote.

Clinton is "ignoring the enormous savings that would come by assuring people could get proper care where and when they need it," Ross added.

For example, a report out just last week noted $6.4 billion in lost wages and productivity in low income communities through premature deaths due to colon cancer, according to researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Dismissing the yearning of millions of Americans for a more humane healthcare system not based on ability to pay, and relying on a disputed data is disgraceful," said Ross. "It's a reminder again why nurses across the U.S. have been rallying and campaigning for a candidate who will never stop fighting for guaranteed healthcare for all."

SOURCE National Nurses United