What is this? The MNA Daily NewsScan is a round up the day’s biggest nursing, health care and organized labor stories. As news unfolds in real-time, we update the NewsScan with new links and info, so check back often!
Stories we’re scanning:
Health Care
$18 For A Baby Aspirin? Hospitals Hike Costs For Everyday Drugs For Some Patients Sudden chest pains landed Diane Zachor in a Duluth, Minn., hospital overnight, but weeks later she had another shock – a $442 bill for the same everyday drugs she also takes at home, including more than a half dozen common medicines to control diabetes, heart problems and high cholesterol.
In Fight Over Obama Health Care Law, a Front in Minnesota In setting up a marketplace where people can shop for insurance, the state has sought advice from consumer groups, labor unions, doctors and hospitals, employers, insurance companies, agents and brokers, and American Indian tribes.
OpEd: Health Care Providers Have Lost Their Way Putting your life in someone’s hands is grossly different than buying a hamburger. The April 28 column by D.J. Tice (“Pay up front? Be still my beating heart“) — in which he equated “everyday shakedowns for payment in advance” with payment upon admission to hospitals, presumably Fairview (“AG: Fairview put squeeze on patients,” April 25) — missed the mark. Note to Nurses: You can comment on any of these stories – please make your important perspective known.
Tax Man Cometh for Hospitals That Flout Charity-Care Mission But when hospitals send bill collectors to patient bedsides, file suits against the sick, all while erecting sparkling new buildings as they raise prices for their care, observers wonder whether the money is coming before the mission.
Labor Updates
Sutter Nurses On Strike. Give them your support. Northern California RNs will strike eight Sutter corporation hospitals Tuesday, May 1 to once again protest the wealthy corporation’s outrageous demands for more than 100 reductions in patient care protections and RN standards. Watch RNs speak up about going on strike.
GREAT video of Albert Lea RNs speaking up and walking in solidarity.
