Illinois Nurses for Obama???

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Specializes in Rehab.

hello nurses from that prairie state!!! i am big time barack supporter but wanted to know how has he impacted your state through acts he has passed in congress to support nurses??? have you seen changes while he was in senate? what are some of the positive or negative changes you have witnessed or has there really been no clear cut improvement? i noticed he is opposed to manadatory over time except in emergency situations and safe nurse to pt. ratios and the right to organize without fearor hostility from employers. he wants to pass those acts into law upon his presidency. so just wondering how him being your senator has changed your work environment. thanks!!!

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You might be opening a can worms that you wish you hadn't opened. I am among a group of IL citzens that are very much against Obama. The state of IL is in a mess and he really has done nothing as our senator to help out. It would be nice if he would do something to get the state to pay their medicaid bill, since they haven't really paid anyone since Sept 2007.

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Specializes in Burns, ICU.

I too am not for Obama. There has been nothing done for nurses from what I can see, and universal health care will just make it worse. I am not saying that I don't want everyone to have care - but can you imagine what pt ratio's will be when everyone everywhere will have the ability to just come in and get whatever they want? The lines, the stress, and the system will begin to slowly crumble...

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Specializes in Rehab.

Well not good news...hopefully he will understand the position he puts healthcare workers in once there is universal healthcare and really get those acts passed into law b/c I can totally see every position there is in the health field getting burned out. Thanks for the comments!

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Yay!!! people who agree with me....: )

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Specializes in Maternal - Child Health.

Count me among the IL native nurses who are definitely NOT for Obama.

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Specializes in Urgent Care NP, Emergency Nursing, Camp Nursing.
You might be opening a can worms that you wish you hadn't opened. I am among a group of IL citzens that are very much against Obama. The state of IL is in a mess and he really has done nothing as our senator to help out. It would be nice if he would do something to get the state to pay their medicaid bill, since they haven't really paid anyone since Sept 2007.

You do realize that Senator is a Federal office, not a State one, right? It's not his job to kick ass in the state of IL, it's his job to kick ass in the Senate.

Also, do you honestly expect one person who does not hold state office to get anything done about the nepotistic, patronistic mess that is Illinois politics? How long have you lived in this state, really? The only hope for the state's politics comes not from Obama but from Pat Fitzgerald, the US Attorney in Chicago - and even the US Attorney's office can only do so much.

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Specializes in Burns, ICU.

Senate is a federal position, but he is an IL STATE SENATOR... meaning that he is working for the state of IL and its people when looking at federal policies and government actions. There are many local politicians that are working for nurses, but on a more local level. However, I don't see anyone that is able to accomplish too much in general that would help one particular group of workers.

What I will say is that universal health care is a huge error in judgement for so many reasons that I cannot even begin to list. Imagine the lines of people, and turning people away because we just cannot take care of everyone with everything. In other countries you do not get the "do everything" type of care that we get here.... if you have a terminal illness, they really just try and make you comfortable with what time you have left, not a whole lot of anything else. Are we really ready for that here?

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Specializes in Urgent Care NP, Emergency Nursing, Camp Nursing.

No, he's not a State Senator. He had to quit that job to go to DC as the junior Senator from the State of Illinois. And while he may be the darling of the national party, he doesn't have the power in the IL State Democratic party to tell Blago and Emil Jones to jump and have them ask "How high?"

Universal Healthcare is what we're going to have to end up with in this country, one way or another. We're the only industrialized nation without it, and because of that we end up spending our money inefficiently through insurance companies (and, sadly, Obama is not for single-payer health care). We already pay for everyone's health care - when the uninsured are forced to use the ER as their primary care location and have their chronic conditions spiral out of control to the point where hospitals are ethically required to deal with them, the costs they can't pay are passed on to those of us who do have health insurance...pricing the lowest rung out of being able to afford insurance, and increasing the burden on the rest of us who do. As things go on, eventually only the well-off will be able to afford coverage at all, which kinda defeats the point of health insurance. The capacity is there for universal care if we treat people early - which, if no one can be unilaterally denied coverage, will suddenly be in the financial interest of insurance companies to do. Yes, other countries may not get the "do everything" health care we get - but we already pay more per capita on health care than Canada, or for that matter anyone else. And, also, not everyone gets that level of treatment - only the people with really good coverage, and not just run-of-the-mill insurance, get the "do everything" care you're fond of here, everyone else does just get palliative care.

Oh, and for what he's done on health care, here's his Senate office's Healthcare page: http://obama.senate.gov/issues/health_care/

It's largely things he's introduced or cosponsored that may or may not have been made into law yet - and, considering that he's a Freshman junior senator, probably not much that he introduced made it intact into law... but that's par for the course in the senate, and he has attached himself to other things through cosponsorship. Go take a gander.

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WOW All this anger toward Barack Obama.

Good point one person made, Senator Obama is serving in the US Senate- he is working on and voting on federal legislation, not state legislation.

While he served in the IL legislature, Barack Obama was supportive of nurses. I believe he has much greater potential to help effect change in our national healthcare policy that is currently flawed. Healthcare in America is broken, and someday soon we will need to fix the system. While many fear national healthcare, why is it the our nation's healthcare system is ranked so low in terms of overall quality of care when compared with numerous other industrialized nations who have universal healthcare?

Many of our issues in IL are related to poor leadership, and waste. The cook county system is poorly managed, while Speaker of the House and the governor are arguing all the time and unable to come to an agreement on anything, resulting in overtime legislative sessions and legislation being held up and not passing.

I'll be voting for Barack in November.

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I fully support Obama. I support universal healthcare and all the support he has given nurses. I agree that he is not a state senetor, he is representative for the state of IL on federal legislature....good point. I think that if you know your facts politically as a nurse, you can't help but support the man.

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He may be a junior senator for the state of illinois now, but he was in the Illinois state senate before he ran for the US Senate. So he did have a hand in what our situation is like now. Dont get me wrong I do like Obama. I come from a working class family, rooted in unions. I am hoping that he does get elected as President because I dont think our country can go through another 8 years like we just have. Can it get worse? Lord I hope not.

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