NNU rally via National Nurses United on Flickr

NNU rally via National Nurses United on Flickr

The National Nurses United, a brand new union created earlier this month and the largest professional group of nurses in the country, officially opposes the Senate health care bill.  NNU, a member of the AFL-CIO, slammed the Senate bill as a giveaway to the insurance industry that falls far short of real reform.

National Nurses United, the nation’s largest registered nurses union and professional organization, declared on Tuesday that the Senate health care bill gives away too much to insurance companies and “fails to meet the test of true health care reform.”

“It is tragic to see the promise from Washington this year for genuine, comprehensive reform ground down to a seriously flawed bill that could actually exacerbate the health care crisis and financial insecurity for American families, and that cedes far too much additional power to the tyranny of a callous insurance industry,” said co-president Karen Higgins in a statement.

“Sadly, we have ended up with legislation that fails to meet the test of true health care reform, guaranteeing high quality, cost effective care for all Americans, and instead are further locking into place a system that entrenches the chokehold of the profit-making insurance giants on our health. If this bill passes, the industry will become more powerful and could be beyond the reach of reform for generations,” she added.

NNU is the first major union to flat-out oppose the Senate’s health care bill.  While the union supports a single-payer health care system – indeed, at least one of its founding unions, the California Nurses Association, has a long history of fighting for single payer – it tied its opposition of the bill to 10 major shortfalls that will likely appear in the final bill.  Several of their points of opposition echo FDL’s 10 reasons to vote against the senate bill.

1. The individual mandate forcing all those without coverage to buy private insurance, with insufficient cost controls on skyrocketing premiums and other insurance costs.

2. No challenge to insurance company monopolies, especially in the top 94 metropolitan areas where one or two companies dominate, severely limiting choice and competition.

3. An affordability mirage. Congressional Budget Office estimates say a family of four with a household income of $54,000 would be expected to pay 17 percent of their income, $9,000, on healthcare exposing too many families to grave financial risk.

4. The excise tax on comprehensive insurance plans which will encourage employers to reduce benefits, shift more costs to employees, promote proliferation of high-deductible plans, and lead to more self-rationing of care and medical bankruptcies, especially as more plans are subject to the tax every year due to the lack of adequate price controls. A Towers-Perrin survey in September found 30 percent of employers said they would reduce employment if their health costs go up, 86 percent said they’d pass the higher costs to their employees.

5. Major loopholes in the insurance reforms that promise bans on exclusion for pre-existing conditions, and no cancellations for sickness.

7. Inadequate limits on drug prices, especially after Senate rejection of an amendment, to protect a White House deal with pharmaceutical giants, allowing pharmacies and wholesalers to import lower-cost drugs.

9. Reduced reproductive rights for women.

Read the rest of NNU’s criticism here.