Hundreds of Locked Out SEIU Nurses Hit Picket Lines In Las Vegas

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/4794

Hundreds of Locked Out SEIU Nurses Hit Picket Lines In Las Vegas

By Doug Cunningham

Six hundred SEIU nurses have been locked out and are on the picket lines at two hospitals in Las Vegas in a contract renewal dispute. SEIU's Chris Coil says nurses agreed not to strike for a 30-day cooling off period but were locked out Monday morning by Universal Health Services.

[Donnachaidh]

1. Tell me again why we shouldn't nationalize health care in this country?

What were the reasons again? :sarcasm:

[salib]

2. Are you kidding?

Look what happened to those union workers who where Gov't air traffic controllers. The Federal Gov't (let alone state and local) can be the MOST BRUTAL with unions.

That said. YES, WE NEED TO HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.

[daveskilt]

3. As a hospital CEO who would stand to lose a lot in a Nationalized Health Care system...

Yes we need universal healthcare.

It would cost me significant amounts of money in the short term.
BUT the waste in health care is phenomenal.

this is the argument for universal healthcare from the perspective of senior healthcare - my field.

In the 80's and early nineties waste was encouraged. The medicare and medicaid systems were on a strict reimbursement (cost+) system i.e. the more you could spend the more you could make.

Then they went to PPS and hospitals were paid DRG levels - basically the diagnosis sets a per diem rate and all costs are the hospitals responsibility. Nursing homes ended up becoming hospitals as post op rates were so low that hospitals were shoving people out the door and rehab and recovery no longer was profitable for the acute hospital - so the SNF came along (skilled nursing) and filled the niche along with LTAC's and hospices all wanting to cash in on the medicare rates.

The waste comes in because so many businesses want in. The Govt has your medicare money - the HMO takes your medicare money and gives half of it to the SNF. The SNF uses about half of the HMO money to pay for people whose sole job is to collect money (usually after a fight) from the HMO and report MDS data to medicare to prove they should get paid for caring for people, in addition the SNF pays massive liability and lawsuit insurance because no one believes their 104 year old grandma with Congestive heart failure should die. The other half goes to room and board and paying nurses and comes about $2 a day per patient short of covering that cost.

This is just the start of the waste. Then the pharmacy bill comes - mine is usually around 35k a month. this is the per diem I pay the pharmacy - the pharmacy claims poverty and gets a matching amount from medicare. Now under Part D the pharmacies have set up their own Fiscal intermediaries and and their own part D plans - essentially the pharmacy through a shell company decides how much to charge itself for meds then turns around for reimbursement from the govt and a tax break on the other side for using the part D plan.

Hospice, enteral feeding, med supply, home health, Long term acute, food conglomorates, and bed companies all have similar legal scams running but partD is the most ambitious and breathtakingly bad for seniors (just wait till they get past the threshhold for the year around May and have 10k in "donut hole" bills to pay before part D kicks back in. 30k may sound like a lot of drug coverage but it wouldn't last three months for a dialysis patient or someone on 3rd generation IV antibiotics that can run 5k a day)

The hospitals often get the blame for nursing wages and all sorts of things from a few unions - we are not the bad guys here. The system itself and the ancillary providers and HMO's are fleecing the govt and the hospitals get whats left. Medicaid pays me 136 per patient for the 75% of my patients who are completely covered by medicaid. Including rent my costs are 187 per patient per day on average. This is a loss of $51 per patient per day. HMO's pay an average of 240 per day but typically have higher costs (I pay all IV's and a few other costs medicaid picks up). Medicare pays an average of 440 per day for rehab (although Physical therapists cost about 50 an hour so I often lose money on even the medicare patients as well) The only way I can make a profit is by attracting more rehab patients with higher than medicaid reimbursement rates. This means having better care so doctors send us their patients. This means paying higher rates to have the best nurses.

I pay around an average of $3 an hour over the local avg rate for nurses. with benefits that is a cost of about 4.15 per hour more. My nurses voted no on having a union as they did not want to take the lower union contract rates and pay dues - I also like to think they are actually happy working here :). Based on my interactions with the union here they adverserial approach is simply damaging. I would suggest working with providers who are trying to be socailly responsible and not price gouging to go after the real culprits - HMO's, hospices, pharmacies and ultimately a non nationalized health care system.

[Omaha Steve]

4. Resurrection Health Care Workers Fighting for Patients and Respect

The other side of organizing medical care. There are good and bad employers of union and non union shops. You fall in the good cata gory but there are....

Resurrection Health Care Workers Fighting for Patients and Respect



http://blog.aflcio.org/2006/12/04/resurrection-health-care-workers-fighting-for-patients-and-respect/

Resurrection Health Care Workers Fighting for Patients and Respect

by James Parks, Dec 4, 2006

Shirley Brown, a housekeeper at Resurrection Health Care’s (RHC’s) Westlake Hospital, knew it would be hard to form a union in her workplace, but to her the struggle is worth it to gain better care for patients:

I believe forming our union is our best chance for respect and decent working conditions. We knew that it would be difficult to organize our union, but we can’t stand back and watch things continue to get worse.

Brown is one of 10,000 workers at RHC facilities who, for four years, have been fighting to win a voice at work with AFSCME Council 31 in the face of intense management opposition. RHC management has threatened, harassed and intimidated employees, including firing eight union supporters.

Resurrection is the largest Catholic health care chain in Illinois, but its management is ignoring centuries of Catholic teachings that support the rights of workers. Employees are seeking union representation because of concerns about the impact that the hospital chain’s rapid expansion has had on working conditions and patient care.

AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer says:

We believe that Resurrection hospitals have a critical role to play in our communities but Resurrection cannot possibly achieve its potential without the full involvement of its talented and dedicated workforce. Quality care and strong financial performance start with heeding the concerns of frontline caregivers.

Poor management practices recently led Fitch Ratings, one of the nation’s top credit rating agencies, to downgrade Resurrection’s debt outlook from stable to negative. And the hospital chain’s anti-union practices have required it to settle 14 unfair labor practice charges filed at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Last year, an AFSCME report concluded that Resurrection executives place more emphasis on corporate growth and profits than on quality patient care. The report, based on interviews with nurses throughout the Resurrection system and data from public records and quality-oversight agencies, detailed declining staffing levels, higher prices for services and inadequate equipment and supplies.

Union organizers, meeting Dec. 8–9 in Washington, D.C., at the AFL-CIO Organizing Summit, will hear more about the Resurrection struggle as they develop strategies to help more workers join unions. The two-day summit will bring together organizers, leaders and members from the United States and around the world. Participants will focus on successful grassroots organizing techniques and innovative campaign strategies that have enabled workers to join unions despite the anti-union decisions of the Republican-dominated NLRB.

Summit participants also will rally on Capitol Hill and discuss plans for building on the astounding political shift after the Nov. 7 election to win passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. The act would allow employees to freely choose whether to form unions by signing cards authorizing representation. To register for the summit or for more information, call Tiffany Heath at 202-637-6247.

[pinto]

6. The layers and layers of hands that end up on a patient's bill

or the provider's bill are phenomenal. I really think the recent compromises on private/public financed health care is short term wishful thinking and no real solution. Does anyone really understand it?

I'm a customer, fairly well educated, and it's a maze. I also do some insurance billing for a friend who has a private psychotherapy practice - the number of middle men is boggling.

It seems that a single payer, ie Federal, universal health care plan would be best for all, and would probably make your job a little simpler. Thanks for your post.

[rainbow4321]

5. Per a nursing board I just visited..

They are locked out til Saturday...info was reported on a local news station.