Renewing its commitment to the larger fight for health care justice, the California Nurses Association (CNA) is pleased to sponsor Assembly Bill 1400 (Kalra), the California Guaranteed Health Care for All Act (CalCare), which would guarantee comprehensive, high-quality health care to all California residents as a human right. The establishment of the CalCare program is an improved Medicare for All-type health care system.

Despite the gains made under the Affordable Care Act, nearly 3 million Californians have no health insurance, while millions more have insurance that they can’t afford to use because their copays and deductibles are too high. Meanwhile, for-profit insurance companies are reporting record-breaking profits, even while the Covid-19 pandemic continues to ravage California and medical bankruptcies are at an all time high.

Sponsored by CNA and authored by Assemblymember Ash Kalra, AB 1400 will ensure that all Californians, regardless of employment, income, immigration status, race, gender, or any other considerations, can get the health care they need, free at the point of service.

“From our experiences caring for patients, we nurses have known the need for and fought for decades for everyone to have guaranteed health care through a system like CalCare,” said Bonnie Castillo, RN and executive director of California Nurses Association and the national nursing organization with which it is affiliated, National Nurses United. “The Covid pandemic has just underscored the desperate societal need for this program NOW. CalCare will ensure that public health is the priority of our health care system, not making a buck for insurance corporations.”

CNA nurses have been at the forefront of the fight to guarantee health care as a right for all Californians since 1994, when they led the charge for Prop. 186, a ballot measure that would have implemented a single-payer system in California. Since then, nurses have continued to advocate for guaranteed health care for all, knowing all too well the failings that come with a health care system that places profits ahead of patients.

Negotiating with Terrorists
August 29, 2016 Weekly Columns
It has been a longstanding policy of the United States that we will not negotiate with terrorists and we will not pay ransom money to free hostages. The reasons for this policy are obvious; paying ransoms incentivizes the taking of more hostages. U.S. presidents for decades have recognized this policy and adhered to it - until this president.

As we have learned over the last several weeks, the Obama administration paid Iran $400 million in pallets of foreign currency – supposedly to pay them back for an arms deal in the late 1970’s that the United States had negotiated with the Shah of Iran when they were considered a friendly ally. Not surprisingly, when the Shah was overthrown and the Islamic Revolutionaries took over the country and seized 52 American hostages, that arms deal was negated and diplomatic relations between our two countries were severed.

Former President Barack Obama didn’t give “150 billion in cash” to Iran.

The nuclear agreement included China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, so Obama didn’t carry out any part of it on his own. The deal did lift some sanctions, which lifted a freeze on Iran’s assets that were held largely in foreign, not U.S., banks. And, to be clear, the money that was unfrozen belonged to Iran. It had only been made inaccessible by sanctions aimed at crippling the country’s nuclear program.