An 1199SEIU petition I got in an email today...

[Galvatron1]

will this mean higher taxes? will we have to pay for it somehow? pls discuss, i want your thoughts on the following 1199 petition:

in late june, more than 2,000 healthcare workers met in baltimore to launch seiu healthcare, our new national union with more than 1 million healthcare members from 38 seiu locals, speaking with one strong voice for good jobs and quality care.

» read more about the launch of seiu healthcare

seiu healthcare will work to unite more healthcare workers, raise standards, and fix america's broken healthcare system. our first big effort is to collect a million petition signatures urging congress to provide health insurance to uninsured children.

more than 9 million children in america have no health insurance. they have no access to regular checkups, their parents struggle to afford doctors' visits when they are sick, and they often go without care. congress can provide coverage to millions of uninsured kids by increasing funding for the state children's health insurance program (schip) by $50 billion.

sign the petition and help america's children get the care they need.

be one in a million.

visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.

tell-a-friend! if you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for seiu action center.

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

I think the public is behind this proposal...

[AnneDNP]

Who do you think is already paying for it now? If kids, or adults for that matter, get sick now and need acute care, tax payers are already paying for it. The difference with providing health insurance is that preventive care, such as regular check-ups, vaccinations and such will be covered. It will be much less expensive for all of us to provide early access to healthcare than having people unable to access healthcare providers until they are so sick that they have to come through emergency rooms.

[NursingAgainstdaOdds]

I agree wholeheartedly with iowanurse. The lack of preventative care is already costing billions of dollars a year. That said, even if this would raise taxes, which I doubt, I cannot with good conscience place a price on the health of a child, or any person for that matter. The fact that our government, one of the most productive industrialized nations in the world, does not provide health care to all its citizens sickens and distresses me a great deal. A democracy cannot properly function if a huge portion of its citizens are struggling beneath the burden of health care costs, child care costs and so forth.