MNA Legislative Update - January 18, 2013 (Page 87)

Staffing for Patient Safety

 

MNA lobbyists are meeting with legislators on a daily basis to move our campaign for patient safety forward. We continue to make progress toward our goal. Earlier this week, members of the MNA Government Affairs Committee visited the Capitol and met with legislators to talk about their experiences at the bedside and the need to ensure that every patient in Minnesota can get the nursing care they need. We will continue to bring you news about this campaign as it unfolds. In the meantime, use the MNA Grassroots Action Center to contact your state senator and representative and let them know how nurse staffing affects your patients.

 

Health Insurance Exchange

On Wednesday the bill creating a Minnesota Health Insurance Exchange – the virtual marketplace required by the Affordable care act to help Americans find affordable and high quality health insurance – passed its first committee hearing. As it is written, the bill would allow the Exchange to negotiate with insurers to get the most affordable coverage for Minnesotans, and would block insurance agents from serving on the board of the Exchange. These two points are an important step for health care consumers and advocates for affordable health care for working families.

Health Care for All

Meanwhile, Senator John Marty (DFL-Roseville) and Representative Carolyn Laine (DFL-Columbia Heights) introduced a bill to cover all Minnesotans with high-quality health care regardless of their income. The Minnesota Health Plan would reduce costs, improve coverage, cover all necessary health care, and allow patients to choose their own providers. While the debate about health care will be primarily focused on the establishment of the Health Insurance Exchange this session, our ultimate goal is still high-quality, affordable health care for all, and we applaud the introduction of this bill.

The Governor’s Budget

Governor Dayton will release his budget proposal on January 22. While we haven’t seen the details, we expect his budget to lay out a plan to address Minnesota’s structural deficit, while strengthening working families. Governor Dayton campaigned on a message of tax fairness, so we expect to see changes to the tax system that will make the system more fair for middle class Minnesotans, while requiring the wealthiest to pay their fair share. Once the Governor proposes his budget, the Legislature will take up the budget debate, which will be the dominant issue of this legislative session.

MNA and NNU RNs turned out last night to testify in opposition to the proposed National Nurse Licensure bill.
MNA and NNU RNs turned out to testify in opposition to the proposed National Nurse Licensure bill.

Day on the Hill – February 4-5

Patient safety is too important for you to sit this out. Patients depend on you in the hospital, and they’re depending on you at the Capitol. Nurses are the most trusted profession in the country, and when you speak up, legislators listen. If you don’t speak up, they will only hear the hospital administration side of the story.

MNA makes it easy for you to make your voice heard. MNA staff will make appointments for you with your legislators. You will get the tools you need to be an effective citizen lobbyist and the information you need to advocate for safe staffing legislation. You will meet with your legislator with a team and

a leader who knows the way around the Capitol.

February 4: Education Session and Dinner, 5:30 – 9:00 pm, Crowne Plaza Hotel, St. Paul. Invited speakers include Governor Mark Dayton.
February 5: Capitol visits and action begin at 8:00 am

Sign up by logging in to the Member Portal at www.mnnurses.org. If you have any questions, please speak to your facility’s MNA chair or contact Eileen Gavin at eileen.gavin@mnnurses.org or 651-414-2871.

Staffing for Patient Safety

 

MNA lobbyists are meeting with legislators on a daily basis to move our campaign for patient safety forward. We continue to make progress toward our goal. Earlier this week, members of the MNA Government Affairs Committee visited the Capitol and met with legislators to talk about their experiences at the bedside and the need to ensure that every patient in Minnesota can get the nursing care they need. We will continue to bring you news about this campaign as it unfolds. In the meantime, use the MNA Grassroots Action Center to contact your state senator and representative and let them know how nurse staffing affects your patients.
… Read more about: MNA Legislative Update – January 18, 2013  »

Subscribers,

An unedited draft of a story about floating went out unintentionally this afternoon.   It contained several inaccuracies.  All links to this story have been deleted.  Please delete the forwarded version you received.  My apologies to you all for the release or any concerns it may have caused.
… Read more about: Correction: floating story  »

-Rick Fuentes
MNA Communications
 
 

NOTES ON NURSING

Nursing Receives Unproportionately Low Percentage of NIH Budget   Specifically, nurses get 0.75% of the US National Institutes of Health budget, even though nurses make up the majority of health professionals in the US.

Nurse-Led Recycling Initiative Reduces OR Waste   Pallotta and her OR colleagues were spurred to action when they read a study that found a large proportion of OR products could be recycled. What followed was a nurse-driven, evidence-based study and analysis of HackensackUMC’s practices and how they could be altered.

LABOR UPDATES

MnSCU, 4-year Faculty Reach Contract Agreement    The agreement includes a 2.2 percent pay raise, retroactive to last fall, said Nancy Black, president of the Inter Faculty Organization.
… Read more about: MNA NewsScan, January 16, 2013: Where’s the love from NIH for RNs?  »

Health Leaders magazine named Lori Swanson, Minnesota’s Attorney General, one of its HL20-leaders who are making health care better- in its December, 2012 issue.  Swanson, who was also awarded 2010 Public Official of the Year by the Minnesota Nurses Association, was named for her battle with debt collections company Accretive and its alleged violations working for client Fairview Hospitals in Minnesota.

Swanson targeted Accretive after one of its employees had a laptop stolen from a car with more than 23,000 patient records inside and unsecured or encrypted.  That, Swanson charged, was a violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) laws. 
… Read more about: More honors for Minnesota AG Lori Swanson  »

NOTES ON NURSING

Improving Nurses’ Work Environment Can Help Reduce Readmissions    The study, led by Matthew McHugh, PhD , JD, MPH, RN, FAAN, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, found that  increased nurse-to-patient staffing ratios and a good work environment for nurses were associated with reduced 30-day readmission rates for Medicare patients with heart failure, myocardial infarction, and pneumonia. Funding for the study came from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) Nurse Faculty Scholars program.

New Grads Finding Rough Road to Employment    Since the recession, health care has been the single biggest sector for job growth, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get hired.
… Read more about: MNA NewsScan, January 14, 2013: More Nurses Mean Fewer Readmissions  »

Legislative Session Begins

On Tuesday, the 2013 Session of the Minnesota Legislature began. Both the House and Senate have introduced their first key pieces of legislation:

  • The House and Senate each introduced a bill to establish a health insurance exchange, a key part of the Affordable Care Act that will provide an online marketplace for Minnesotans to compare different health insurance policies. This is an opportunity to improve access to health care and lower costs for uninsured and underinsured Minnesotans. The bill was crafted by a bipartisan group including chief House author Rep. Joe Atkins (DFL-Inver Grove Heights), Representative Jim Abeler (R-Anoka) and Representative Greg Davids (R-Preston).
  • … Read more about: MNA Legislative Update, January 11, 2013  »

HEALTH CARE

Poor Performance Means Less Medicare Reimbursement for Most Minnesota Hospitals Medicare is revamping its payment system for hospitals as part of an effort to make them accountable on quality. The latest change will give bonuses and penalties to hospitals based on how well they performed on quality measures.

Health Care and Pursuit of a Profit Make a Poor Mix   A shareholder might even applaud the creativity with which profit-seeking institutions go about seeking profit. But the consequences of this pursuit might not be so great for other stakeholders in the system — patients, for instance.
… Read more about: MNA NewsScan, January 9, 2012: Medicare Penalizes MN hospitals; For profit=poor care  »

MNA Legislative Preview

Session Begins January 8
The 2013 Minnesota legislative session starts on Tuesday, January 8. With new DFL majorities in the House and Senate, the political climate at the Capitol will be very different than the past two years, and will offer some new opportunities for nurses to work on policy priorities, as well as some new challenges.

In the 2012 election, DFLers won back majorities in both the Minnesota House and Senate. Senate Majority Leader-elect Tom Bakk of Cook and House Speaker-elect Paul Thissen of Minneapolis have stated their top priorities for the 2013 session will be responsibly balancing our state budget, strengthening our education system and creating good jobs .
… Read more about: MNA Legislative Preview-2013 session starts tomorrow!  »