According to the Associated Press as cited in the Post article, "Cuba has made recent advancements in biotechnology and exports its treatments to 40 countries around the world, raking in an estimated $100 million a year. ... In 2004, the U.S. government granted an exception to its economic embargo against Cuba and allowed a California drug company to test three cancer vaccines developed in Havana."
Specializes in ICU;CCU;Telemetry;L&D;Hospice;ER/Trauma;.
To Teeituptom:
Where, exactly do fire/police departments get their budgets to provide services? They are not private entities....they are SOCIALLY funded, ie our taxes....yes...they are universally provided services....in some areas, it is true, ie, rural areas, some people pay a yearly premium for fire protection, but their police departments are provided as a basic need and human right by the taxes each of us pay....how is this NOT socialized? When your house is on fire, the fire department doesn't say,"well, let's see, you had a pre-existing condition with your wiring, so, we are just going to stand here and watch it burn..." or, "I'm sorry, you didn't pay your premium this month, so eventhough you have an intruder breaking into your house, our officers will not arrive to protect you!" We all go to sleep at night knowing that if our houses catch fire, or our child stops breathing, or if some lame fool breaks in and attempts to do harm to us, we have protection....that is socially provided through our taxes.
We pay higher and higher taxes anyway....and we pay even higher premiums with less coverage and higher deductibles because when the disenfranchised do not have access, hospitals are required to treat them when they come into an ER....if their illness is devastaing, requiring long months of rehab, or treatment, or surgery, who ultimately is paying for that??? The hospitals have to somehow recover those costs....so eventually, when you go in for your elective hernia repair, instead of a reasonable cost, they double the amount to make up for what the person who is uninsured did not have....that translates to higher premiums and deductibles for you and I....so, the answer may lie in transitioning people who are uninsured into shared responsibility programs, where they pay a part, based on their ability to pay, and we pay a part via taxes, and employers pay a part. I for one, would not be adverse to paying for someone to have access to health care....
At a time when most county govt's are closing health clinics, shutting down whole hospital wings, while at the same time, the rates of child hood diabetes, autism, low birth weight babies, and heart disease among women are on the rise, YOU BET I CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE PEOPLE. These are your neighbors, and maybe even members of your own family....
I cannot understand the thinking that because some are fortunate enough to have health coverage, that they don't need or don't feel the need to give a rat's patoot about the next guy....that doesn't seem very American, or patriotic, or even Christian, if you will, to me...
As for many who argue that your wages will be affected by a universal health care system, there is no evidence to back that.....and quite a bit of evidence to dispute those fear-based claims.
Just today, the CDC released new evidence that 2 million more people are without health care coverage.....
What do you think will happen to these people and our current broken system in two more years? five years? ten years?
In five years, many of you here will be wanting to retire....do you think your current health care coverage will stay the same as you age? Who will you rely on if there is no way to get your needed medications?
Here is something for all of us to think about:
How many of you have heard someone say this: "I hate my job...but I keep working in a toxic and damaging job because I need the health insurance."?
Happy people are healthy people....how many of you know someone who would leave their jobs in a NY minute if they had the assurance that they would have health care coverage, no matter what?
People who are happy, are also productive and creative....and they require LESS health care visits....(this is evidenced based, by the way)....
Just take a step back for a minute and think what a difference in people's general physical and mental health just this one thing would make in their lives....to know that if they are ever really sick, they need not worry about their health....that they are covered...
While Laura Bush is trotting around Africa worrying about malaria and handing out mosquito nets, we have people on South Side Chicago, Los Angeles, Bronx, Detroit, Denver, SanAntonio, Seattle, who do not have access to health care...how are their lives any LESS THAN someone in Namibia, or Ghana?
Yes, some can go sign up the stack of 30 pages of 8X11 single spaced lines that is required in some health care plans in order to maybe be approved....and God help you if someone in the outsourced managed care companies finds some picayune reason to deny you coverage....
This is the reality for most of these people....
How some here can turn their heads away from this reality and not look at it for it's blinding truth, is beyond me....
If we don't even take care of our own, what does that say about us as a country? As a village, as a community? What does the world see us as? We can drop food and water to any country in the world within HOURS, (PhuKet, Thailand), but we cannot provide decent adequate health care for our own citizens? I take care of some of these patients....who I end up discharging home ( and sometimes to the street)with no follow up care....no one to change bandages, or monitor wound care, or follow up with diabetic teaching, or make sure those heart meds are sufficient....and so many end up right back on our doorstep, in worse shape, at higher costs....because the door is closed to them at the doctor's office, or the health care clinic.
Are we just supposed to just let them lay down and die and step on over them on our way to the pharmacy for our OWN medications?
Whatever you think about MM, he has stirred in all of us what has been on pollsters lips for the last thirty years....it is the number one or number two priority....and here we are, innert, polarized....
I would really like to see some rational and thoughtful solutions....
not fear based, personal attacks....
WE are nurses, and we should expect better of ourselves and each other.....
Now you have me thoughly confused. In the past here I always thought you were arguing against a Universal Health Care system. Now it sounds as if your advocating for a UHC system.
Difference in a UHC syst is that services will be so over whelmed even if you want to pay for it you may not be able to.
So what you're saying is that there is currently a population that wants/needs services that can't get them and if they had health care coverage they would overwhelm the system?
Please note, that I'm not a proponent that government take over all aspects of health care.......just provide coverage for all, i.e. pay for it. Health care should remain in private hands. So if there's a profit to be made in healthcare, I'd like to think we'd be able to eventualy handle the demand.
So what you're saying is that there is currently a population that wants/needs services that can't get them and if they had health care coverage they would overwhelm the system?
Not necessarily.
We all know that there is often a big difference between what people WANT in healthcare and what they truly NEED.
We see it every day in patients who insist on going to the ER when a visit to a family physician or clinic would suffice, at much less cost. (I'm not talking about those currently without access to primary care.) I'm talking about people like my neighbor who will stay at work all day with a fever and raging sore throat, and then will go to the ER on her way home because it's more convenient for her. Having worked in OB, I also know of pregnant moms who badger their OBs for unnecessary U/S because they want pictures of their babies for their baby books. We also know that part of the reason for HMO failure was that patients viewed appointments with their family physicians as "free", and they started to go in for all kinds of unnecessary visits that they wouldn't have made had they been paying out of pocket for them (colds, minor injuries, etc.)
I agree that universal, tax-paid coverage would prompt an explosion of demand for healthcare services, some long overdue and justified, some not. There would HAVE to be limitations placed on users to prevent inappropriate utilization of services, both visits for unnecessary reasons (minor colds), AND inappropriate use of high cost services (ER instead of clinic). Otherwise, our system would undoubtedly be overwhelmed beyond the point of being able to provide appropriate care to those truly in need, leaving us worse off than we are now.
Specializes in ICU;CCU;Telemetry;L&D;Hospice;ER/Trauma;.
I am for health care provision for everyone in the country....but I don't want to see another pseudo-HMO run by inept government or 'outsourced' entities that just get rich off of the money that should go to the patients.
We have good workable systems in place, ie the VA system has some good methods....it's not perfect, but it nevertheless has given thousands of vets a chance to receive health care. I just think that one of the biggest deterrents to many in our country, young or old, is the mountain of paperwork that people have to fill out in order to apply for assistance, and even then, the paper work gets lost, or mis-filed...or forgotten....and in the meantime, the patient's needs are not being addressed....
I believe we have the capability and the systems in place to utilize what we have already, but streamline it, and mold it into accommodating the uninsured. It might be "rocky" for a few years, until the wrinkles get smoothed out....but at least it's an attempt at addressing a problem that has been increasingly mishandled and ignored for the last thirty years...
I know many people just have the belief that health insurance is each person's responsibility, and that they should just take care of their own problems.....but a healthy nation, is a strong nation....and as a population of people, we must stop with the "not in my back yard" mentality....
What affects the beggar on the street will one day affect you or me, because, whether we like to admit this to ourselves or not, we are connected through our humanity, and our vulnerability to diseases.
It is just common sense to take good care of ourselves....and help those who cannot because of economic impairment, or other reasons, to help provide for them as well....
I just think as nurses that we should make this a priority in our lifetime...so our grandchildren are not sitting in dead end jobs just to have health care benefits, and so they are not wondering how to help care for us when we are old...
The restrictions that everyone here fritters about are already in place with HMO's and PPO's; I think we can make this "benefit" available to all.
We look at Darfur, and call that situation a "human rights" issue....people starving and dying from disease and war and lack of medical care....why can't we see that on our own soil that it is also a human rights issue to disallow 911 victims adequate and needful medical care? Are they any less of a human being than the Darfurian?
I just think we need to really work on this as a profession...the more involved we become, the more control we have over what happens...
it is better to do this, than sit back and shoot down every single idea, every single statement that someone has.....
I don't think the widow who needs her insulin and needles and a doctor's visit for her foot wound really cares whether or not our opinions get shot back and forth in this forum, whether or not we agree or disagree that police/fire departments are "socialized" services. What this patient really cares about is having basics....food, shelter, and adequate health care and services....
We all know that there is often a big difference between what people WANT in healthcare and what they truly NEED.
Agreed. The government has pretty much put a halt the the free for all, paying for unneccessary treatments in their mediaide patients. No need to think they can't do the same if this program was expanded to include everyone.
Specializes in Cardiac Surg, IR, Peds ICU, Emergency.
To Teeituptom:
Where, exactly do fire/police departments get their budgets to provide services? They are not private entities....they are SOCIALLY funded, ie our taxes....yes...they are universally provided services....in some areas, it is true, ie, rural areas, some people pay a yearly premium for fire protection, but their police departments are provided as a basic need and human right by the taxes each of us pay....how is this NOT socialized? When your house is on fire, the fire department doesn't say,"well, let's see, you had a pre-existing condition with your wiring, so, we are just going to stand here and watch it burn..." or, "I'm sorry, you didn't pay your premium this month, so eventhough you have an intruder breaking into your house, our officers will not arrive to protect you!" We all go to sleep at night knowing that if our houses catch fire, or our child stops breathing, or if some lame fool breaks in and attempts to do harm to us, we have protection....that is socially provided through our taxes.
This is a rather inaccurate representation.
I'm assuming that places like the fire and police dept. keep being presented here as a representation of successful socialization. In fact, this is not accurate.
The fire dept. as a national institution is able to succeed because it is fairly unregulated, the academic element is far less intense than health care, and 73% of it's providers do so for free.
Additionally, there are communities (including very wealthy communities), who are covered by private for-profit departments, and many industries (i.e. manufacturing) that employ their own career fire-fighters and operate their own fire departments within their facilities; these do not support arguments for socialization.
A large percentage of the fire dept's are not tax-funded; many raise funds through business operations (i.e. operating EMS, a social hall, I know of a volunteer fire dept. that owns a tavern to obtain operating revenue, another that owns the parking facilities for an amusement park, and one that owns a McDonalds.
And the police dept. does not succeed as an example of socialization because of some inherent good of socialization...in fact, they may be considered blatant failures of socialization. When you hold up the police dept. as a representation of socialization, you fail to realize that for every police officer in the US, there are approximately 2 to 2.5 private security guards, implying that less than 1/3 of our police protection is actually 'socialized.'
Another reason these examples are poor is because people still die in fires in fully paid socially protected fire districts, and people still are victims of horrible crimes in socially protected police districts...sometimes even victims of the 'socialized' police themselves as the news routinely shows us. Additionally, the majority of these 'socialized' fire and police systems are union.
there are numerous examples of taxpayer funded state and federal grant in aid programs to assist fire departments. see http://www.nvfc.org/federalfunding.html for a very extensive listing of federal initiatives to aid local volunteer departments.
available only to minnesota fire departments.
general information: the volunteer fire assistance grant program is a cost-share program. it provides financial and technical assistance to minnesota fire departments in cities or communities with a population under 10,000. the primary objectives of the program are saving lives and protecting property in rural areas.
level of assistance: approximately 220 to 250 grants from $1,000 to $5,000 are awarded in minnesota annually. the grants are made on a 50:50 match basis. rural fire departments must use the grant money for fire protection and comply with existing state and county rural fire protection plans.
city partners with fort for aircraft rescue and fire fighting services wednesday, 20 september 2006
the city of sierra vista, with both a grant from the federal aviation administration (faa), and funding from the arizona department of transportation (adot) aeronautics division, have now purchased and received a new aircraft rescue and fire fighting (arff) truck for service at libby army airfield/sierra vista municipal airport. the arff truck will be presented to army fire chief kevin baylor on friday, september 22, 2006 at the pedro castro government maintenance center, located at 401 giulio cesare, at 1:30 p.m. local media is invited to attend as mayor thomas j. hessler hands the keys to chief baylor. representatives from rosenbauer america will also be available to answer questions about the new “panther” 6x6, 3,000-gallon truck.
“for more than 30 years, the fort huachuca fire department has been providing aircraft rescue and fire fighting services at libby army airfield, not only for military aircraft, but also civilian aircraft, at no cost to the city. so when we saw an opportunity to secure grant funding, we did,” said city manager, charles potucek.
the texas commission on fire protection administers the fire department emergency program to make grants and low interest loans to texas fire departments with critical equipment needs. there will be approximately $1 million available to fire departments through the program in fiscal year 2007.
[color=#b22222]who can apply?
eligible texas fire departments with critical fire suppression needs can apply.
to make this health care related. most of the volunteer departments provide first responder services etc to their communities. without much effort i was able to find examples of taxpayer support in furtherance of the common good for critical public safety needs. providing police, fire and insuring affordable health care certainly fall within the concept of the general welfare as mentioned in the constitution. i know that in mn that fire department volunteers are considered to be defacto public employees with defined benefit pensions and local department finances are subject to auditing by the state auditor.
Specializes in ICU;CCU;Telemetry;L&D;Hospice;ER/Trauma;.
So Darren, what's your point??
That because, in your opinion fire and police departments are inept because people still die from fires and violence?? I don't follow your ?logic?
MY point wasn't that there aren't flaws....my POINT was that in some of the previous posts people were expressing fear that "socialized" medicine, universal health care, et al, was somehow on par with Big Brother controls and communistic ideals.....
I used the police and firemen as an EXAMPLE of two socialized services that has been in existence in urban areas for many many years with a fairly decent record....yes, there are bad incidences....but I tend to be one who doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water....
One only has to look at the NYC fire/police department and the Washington DC fire and police to realize just how fortunate all of us are because they are bought and paid for through our taxes.....it wasn't private entities that responded to this tragedy, my friend...it was socialized provided fire and police officers....
so I am not sure what your REAL point is....
Instead of picking apart every little whit and tittle here, why don't you tell all of us here what your solution is to the very real problem of health care in this country?? crni
the problem with the us health care system is that it exists in a country that has become divided by "class". the folks with money, can buy excellent health care.
as long as we continue to accept the "class" system, this will never change.
Specializes in Cardiac Surg, IR, Peds ICU, Emergency.
There are numerous examples of taxpayer funded state and federal grant in aid programs to assist fire departments. see http://www.nvfc.org/federalfunding.html for a very extensive listing of federal initiatives to aid local volunteer departments.
City Partners With Fort For Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Services Wednesday, 20 September 2006
The City of Sierra Vista, with both a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and funding from the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) Aeronautics Division, have now purchased and received a new Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) truck for service at Libby Army Airfield/Sierra Vista Municipal Airport. The ARFF truck will be presented to Army Fire Chief Kevin Baylor on Friday, September 22, 2006 at the Pedro Castro Government Maintenance Center, located at 401 Giulio Cesare, at 1:30 P.M. Local Media is invited to attend as Mayor Thomas J. Hessler hands the keys to Chief Baylor. Representatives from Rosenbauer America will also be available to answer questions about the new "Panther" 6X6, 3,000-gallon truck.
"For more than 30 years, the Fort Huachuca Fire Department has been providing Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting Services at Libby Army Airfield, not only for military aircraft, but also civilian aircraft, at no cost to the City. So when we saw an opportunity to secure grant funding, we did," said City Manager, Charles Potucek.
To make this health care related. Most of the volunteer departments provide first responder services etc to their communities. Without much effort I was able to find examples of taxpayer support in furtherance of the common good for critical public safety needs. Providing police, fire and insuring affordable health care certainly fall within the concept of the general welfare as mentioned in the constitution. I know that in Mn that fire department volunteers are considered to be defacto public employees with defined benefit pensions and local department finances are subject to auditing by the state auditor.
First, these is relatively new funding, most of it implemented since the election of Pres. Bush.
Second, it doesn't provide any support for the concept of single payer/socialist healthcare, for several reasons.
1. 73% of the force is VOLUNTEER.
2. Statewide assistance of 1.2 million is a drop in the bucket. If a department received the max $5k, they might be able to actually purchase replacement tires for their apparatus.
3. Most of Minnesota is covered by volunteers, which means there is minimal payroll outlay. And the AVERAGE pension payout for a 20 YEAR firefighter was a $16k lump sum payout. ($800 per year).
Do you think I've disagreed with someone, or do you actually believe you've made a case for single payer/socialized health care by referencing the fire dept? Maybe Minnesota should make health care largely volunteer and pay 20 year nurses $800/year after retirement. This socialized/single payer system sounds fantastic.
Specializes in Cardiac Surg, IR, Peds ICU, Emergency.
So Darren, what's your point??
That because, in your opinion fire and police departments are inept because people still die from fires and violence?? I don't follow your ?logic?
MY point wasn't that there aren't flaws....my POINT was that in some of the previous posts people were expressing fear that "socialized" medicine, universal health care, et al, was somehow on par with Big Brother controls and communistic ideals.....
I used the police and firemen as an EXAMPLE of two socialized services that has been in existence in urban areas for many many years with a fairly decent record....yes, there are bad incidences....but I tend to be one who doesn't throw the baby out with the bath water....
One only has to look at the NYC fire/police department and the Washington DC fire and police to realize just how fortunate all of us are because they are bought and paid for through our taxes.....it wasn't private entities that responded to this tragedy, my friend...it was socialized provided fire and police officers....
so I am not sure what your REAL point is....
Instead of picking apart every little whit and tittle here, why don't you tell all of us here what your solution is to the very real problem of health care in this country?? crni
Sweet jiminy.
I didn't bring public safety into this discussion as successful examples of socialization; would you suggest I'm not allowed to talk about the flaws in such a maneuver?
Here is the point, explained as simply as possible. I apologize if I seem insulting and offend anyone, but I'm attempting to aim for the lowest common denominator. Others have already gotten the point, and to anyone who is offended, I'm sorry.
During the evolution of this discussion, people attempted to make unreferenced and unqualified support for socialization by referring to the fire dept and law enforcement.
I pointed out blatant and obvious flaws in that position, specifically that 73% of the fire dept. is NOT PAID. Doesn't matter what percentage of the population is covered by paid departments, the reality is that 73% of them are not paid, and it doesn't really matter why. What matters is that they are NOT PAID. If we want to make an accurate comparison, then 73% of nurses (and other health care providers), would have to be working for FREE, and the remaining 27% would have to be caring for 63% of the population. I also pointed out that there are private fire departments (i.e. Rural Metro, and a variety of smaller independent fire departments), in addition to the fact that many industries, i.e. Boeing, operate their own paid fire department because tax supported services are not capable of supporting them.
I also pointed out the error in holding up law enforcement as a successful example of socialization. For every police officer in the US, there are approximately 2.5 private security officers, indicating that the majority of police protection is being provided by the private sector, not some socialized public agency that was mistakenly being held up as an example of successful socialization.
And no matter how you look at it, none of these are single-payer. You can hold up these as some kind of supportive samples of socialized success, but if we look to them for solutions, we either have to INCREASE the number of private providers (like law enforcement), or make 73% of the work force volunteer and pay them a pittance in pension that is equal to roughly 2 years of social security.
BTW, I don't know where you live, but you would be disheartened to find what your tax dollars buy you in regards to public safety in DC. I used to work there. Friend of mine is a police officer, and sometimes they used their own personal vehicles. Another friend was oversaw a contract to teach DC Fire (educational IT upgrade). They cut their losses and cancelled the contract because the low literacy level was to much of an obstacle.
I can't take an objective position on the fire department because I used to work for two of them, but the service is essential. However, these agencies cannot be used as samples of successful socialization any more than you can use the liquor business in Pennsylvania.
I wasn't picking apart "every whit and tittle," but was instead responding reasonably to flawed comparisons. I'd be disturbed to think you were attempting to suppress free speech with your characterization of my QUALIFIED statements on law enforcement and fire service.
CRNI-ICU20
482 Posts
To Teeituptom:
Where, exactly do fire/police departments get their budgets to provide services? They are not private entities....they are SOCIALLY funded, ie our taxes....yes...they are universally provided services....in some areas, it is true, ie, rural areas, some people pay a yearly premium for fire protection, but their police departments are provided as a basic need and human right by the taxes each of us pay....how is this NOT socialized? When your house is on fire, the fire department doesn't say,"well, let's see, you had a pre-existing condition with your wiring, so, we are just going to stand here and watch it burn..." or, "I'm sorry, you didn't pay your premium this month, so eventhough you have an intruder breaking into your house, our officers will not arrive to protect you!" We all go to sleep at night knowing that if our houses catch fire, or our child stops breathing, or if some lame fool breaks in and attempts to do harm to us, we have protection....that is socially provided through our taxes.
We pay higher and higher taxes anyway....and we pay even higher premiums with less coverage and higher deductibles because when the disenfranchised do not have access, hospitals are required to treat them when they come into an ER....if their illness is devastaing, requiring long months of rehab, or treatment, or surgery, who ultimately is paying for that??? The hospitals have to somehow recover those costs....so eventually, when you go in for your elective hernia repair, instead of a reasonable cost, they double the amount to make up for what the person who is uninsured did not have....that translates to higher premiums and deductibles for you and I....so, the answer may lie in transitioning people who are uninsured into shared responsibility programs, where they pay a part, based on their ability to pay, and we pay a part via taxes, and employers pay a part. I for one, would not be adverse to paying for someone to have access to health care....
At a time when most county govt's are closing health clinics, shutting down whole hospital wings, while at the same time, the rates of child hood diabetes, autism, low birth weight babies, and heart disease among women are on the rise, YOU BET I CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THOSE PEOPLE. These are your neighbors, and maybe even members of your own family....
I cannot understand the thinking that because some are fortunate enough to have health coverage, that they don't need or don't feel the need to give a rat's patoot about the next guy....that doesn't seem very American, or patriotic, or even Christian, if you will, to me...
As for many who argue that your wages will be affected by a universal health care system, there is no evidence to back that.....and quite a bit of evidence to dispute those fear-based claims.
Just today, the CDC released new evidence that 2 million more people are without health care coverage.....
What do you think will happen to these people and our current broken system in two more years? five years? ten years?
In five years, many of you here will be wanting to retire....do you think your current health care coverage will stay the same as you age? Who will you rely on if there is no way to get your needed medications?
Here is something for all of us to think about:
How many of you have heard someone say this: "I hate my job...but I keep working in a toxic and damaging job because I need the health insurance."?
Happy people are healthy people....how many of you know someone who would leave their jobs in a NY minute if they had the assurance that they would have health care coverage, no matter what?
People who are happy, are also productive and creative....and they require LESS health care visits....(this is evidenced based, by the way)....
Just take a step back for a minute and think what a difference in people's general physical and mental health just this one thing would make in their lives....to know that if they are ever really sick, they need not worry about their health....that they are covered...
While Laura Bush is trotting around Africa worrying about malaria and handing out mosquito nets, we have people on South Side Chicago, Los Angeles, Bronx, Detroit, Denver, SanAntonio, Seattle, who do not have access to health care...how are their lives any LESS THAN someone in Namibia, or Ghana?
Yes, some can go sign up the stack of 30 pages of 8X11 single spaced lines that is required in some health care plans in order to maybe be approved....and God help you if someone in the outsourced managed care companies finds some picayune reason to deny you coverage....
This is the reality for most of these people....
How some here can turn their heads away from this reality and not look at it for it's blinding truth, is beyond me....
If we don't even take care of our own, what does that say about us as a country? As a village, as a community? What does the world see us as? We can drop food and water to any country in the world within HOURS, (PhuKet, Thailand), but we cannot provide decent adequate health care for our own citizens? I take care of some of these patients....who I end up discharging home ( and sometimes to the street)with no follow up care....no one to change bandages, or monitor wound care, or follow up with diabetic teaching, or make sure those heart meds are sufficient....and so many end up right back on our doorstep, in worse shape, at higher costs....because the door is closed to them at the doctor's office, or the health care clinic.
Are we just supposed to just let them lay down and die and step on over them on our way to the pharmacy for our OWN medications?
Whatever you think about MM, he has stirred in all of us what has been on pollsters lips for the last thirty years....it is the number one or number two priority....and here we are, innert, polarized....
I would really like to see some rational and thoughtful solutions....
not fear based, personal attacks....
WE are nurses, and we should expect better of ourselves and each other.....
jmo.crni