Any DU Nurses Around?

[theHandpuppet]

At a local county Dem meeting the other night a nurse spoke up (very briefly but forcefully) about the strong support Kerry has among the nursing community. It was a busy meeting that night and I didn't get an opportunity to chat with her but am interested why nurses are particularly motivated in this campaign. Virtually every doctor I know is a Freeper!

[StClone]

1. Most dentists too

I don't know why that is so.

[StClone]

2. Most dentists too

I don't know why that is so.

[likesmountains 52]

3. I can only speak for

the nurses I know...but health care is a mess...we need national health care. The hospital I work at provides millions of dollars in "charity care" which is part of their mission...I do not advocate turning people away from the ER or prenatal care etc. but....hospitals cannot continue to hemorrhage money AND pay decent salaries.

[smirkymonkey]

4. Well, with such easy access to pharmaceuticals...

they are clearly under the influence.

[diamond14]

5. my brother is a medical doctor...and he's voting for KERRY !!!

although, much to my dismay, my brother voted for bush* in 2000, the sole reason was because of some lies that bush* put out about the health care system....

IMO, most doctors are REALLY angry at bush* right now...these are smart well-read people, who KNOW that they were taken for a ride during bush* first campaign...doctors' lives have gone downhill under bush* and they KNOW it...in addition, they see every day, the suffering caused by bush* health care policies, it's in their faces in their offices....

[RebelYell]

6. Rumor has it

Bush wants to draft doctors and nurses up to the age of 48 in '05.

I don't have a link, I can't remember where I read it. Sorry.

[benddem]

7. Nurses care about people

that's why most are Dems. There are of course right wingnuts. I did survey recently in our area...all the pediatricians are DEMS. Radiologists are all Reptiles. If you look at this from a personality standpoint...it follows.

[skygazer]

8. I'm not a nurse

But I play one on TV......

whoops, wrong forum. Sorry. Maybe its because nurses are union, they're underpaid and overworked and they're on the front lines of health care and can see firsthand how messed up it is and how badly it needs to be revamped.

[theHandpuppet]

10. That brings up another question...

Will nurses be affected by BushCo's cutbacks on overtime pay?

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

9. I'm a nurse, and most of the other nurses I know

Despise GWB. Under his watch, the uninsured crisis has exploded and, for a variety of reasons, we nurses are directly impacted. The slashing of Medicaid funds, the slashing of prenatal health care, the list goes on and on.

BTW, most doctors I work with are fiscally conservative, but fairly moderate or even liberal regarding social issues. Medicine is a vocation that demands objectivity and compassion, something GWB et. al. has no understanding of. MKJ

[Kukesa]

11. We even have "Nurses for Kerry/Edwards" bumper stickers. n/t

[shanti]

12. i hope you're right about that

nurses being liberal and all. my son's half-sister is an rn and a rabid, rw *ushbot. she's even teaching her 7 yr old daughter to parrot the party line! ugh~!

my mom is a retired rn and she IS a liberal...well on most issues. i still haven't reached her on mm. she's 72.

[Indiana_Dem]

13. I'm a nurse. Let's see. I work in a rural hospital in Indiana, non-union.

My boss is for Kerry for sure. The assistant bosses I'm not sure, one seems to lean right the other maybe left if anything. One African-American nurse I work with is Dem and for Kerry. Two that just retired are adamantly for Bush. The nursing assistants and secretaries are young or going to school and they don't really pay attention and don't seem to care but I got 2 of the younger ones to register to vote, so I have them started. The rest are kind of independent. The CEO and administration seems interested only in their hospital lobby and insinuates that Bush is the answer for some reason and pushes everyone at presidential/CEO meeting updates to join the lobby. I looked up one of our cancer doctors on the website where you can see what groups they donated to and this doctor gave the max to Bush in 2000!

The security guards have people in the service and think Bush is the greatest and get mad when I talk about Kerry. The paramedics hate Kerry, too. I think one of them ripped my Kerry bumper sticker off my car in the parking lot one night because they know I am rallying for Kerry. Some of the ER nurses want Bush, too.

I just don't get it. Most of them really don't care and don't trust either party and probably don't vote.

A lot of nurses seem to be very Christian-like and I think this is why some of them like the things Bush says but they don't listen any further. None of them are political junkies like I am, though. I know better.

One of the older nurses that just retired hates unions because she said union members burnt their family's car a long time ago because either her husband or father crossed the picket line. Her husband also had a kidney transplant and had lots of expensive medicines. They had troubles paying for them all until Bush passed this prescription drug bill. They own their own heating and cooling business. She couldn't retire until they knew if they were going to get coverage for the medicines. I think that's why she likes Bush so much.

[Indiana_Dem]

14. The overtime rule is an important one for nurses.

More than half of them don't even pay attention to politics, though.

The paramedics didn't seem to get it either when I told them they might be affected.

[TacticalPeek]

15. Occupational hazard.

I could understand some nurses voting dem because of the asshole Republican doctors they work for. I have a brother and sister and sister-in-law who are docs, who will all vote dem, but they are traitors to their class (:-)), while my wife is a nurse who must put up all day with doctors' vapid, ill-informed opinions on economics, history etc. which have probably not advanced much since they were in junior high school. (dons flameproof suit)

Incidentally, Ms Peak is a doctor's nurse, and notes that whenever an R is in the WH, the normal stream of gifts from patients, particularly the well-to-do, like food or souvenirs from a trip etc, dries up considerably. Like either they are not so well-to-do as one might expect from Reagan or Bush tax cuts, or they are not so confident about their economic future.

:shrug: