Dexter56

San Diego - 20+ yrs experience, but only 10 count in salary configuration. My hospital is a union (Calif Nurses Assn) hospital. My hrly rate just went to 42.28 from 39.89 with new contract. New grads were making about 30.00 and now have a 6% increase. My per diem job pays 40.11/hr. Cost of living here is - prohibitive. Regular gas is 3.60 a gallon.

My MPA focused on the overall system. I can't recall anyone characterising nursing salaries as the "bane" of the healthcare industry either, but they are a major budget item nonetheless... nursing salaries... RNs. I can speak to the attitudes of administrators toward our salaries just on the basis of the negotiations that my unit of the California Nurses' Assn is conducting at my hospital right now. Last time we came so close to a strike that the replacement workers (strike breakers) actually showed up and were housed by the hospital. Maybe things are friendlier where you are. My point was not really with her recent comment, I took it in the context of the statement that I heard her make in the '90's. I can't find reference to Clinton's view of nurses' salaries in the '90s on the web because it wasn't around back then. But, as I've searched the internet, I have come across the statements of a number of independent nurses who say, unequivocally, that they personally heard her denigrate the status of nurses. One person saying such a thing might just be a crank. A bunch of people from different places saying the same thing has to make you wonder. This is a discussion forum not a court room (though more than one person has been sent to death row on the basis of eye-witness testimony). I wish I had clipped and saved the article that I read, but, nevertheless I will continue to voice what I know to be true.

RE: "Swift Boat" As for the $12,000 a year comment, I read what I read. Period. I have a right and, I believe, an obligation to speak up about something that I consider to be disturbing. I'm not asking anyone to vote one way or another, but I'm stating a fact. Don't believe me if you don't want to. He remarks scared me then as they scare me now. As for Kerry and the "Swift Boat" mess, I voted for him because I believe in the principles of the Democratic party. Military experience was an issue in that campaign and it would have been appropriate for him to say "Hey, I served. I answered my country's call." Instead, he claimed to be a hero. I know people who were heroes in Vietnam. This was disingenuous of him and the "swift boat people", people who were there, called him on it. End of story. Hilary mentioned nurses in a speech about ten days ago. She was comparing the salaries of corporate profiteers versus those of a regular person, "a teacher, a truck driver or a nurse, who makes $50,000 a year". No, she didn't say that a nurse should make that amount, but once again, she voiced a view that nurses are essentially blue collar workers. The starting salary for a new grad at my hospital in California is $62,500. I dunno, maybe we are overpaid. I think most nurses see themselves as professionals. I received my MPA in Health Admin from NYU and, based on my studies there, I can tell you that nursing salaries are an enormous item in the overall healthcare budget. This will be a battle ground in the effort to revamp the system. From what I've heard, I don't believe that Hilary Clinton is going to be a poponent of protecting nurses' salaries at the expense of other components of the healthcare economy. I do make the assumption that she is going to be the next president, though, so I guess we'll find out.

Back in the mid-nineties, I saw in a newspaper that Hilary Clinton said that $12,000.00 a year was "about right" for a nurse's salary. At that time, that amount of money would have put someone pretty close to the poverty level. I can't find this statement referenced on the web either, but, as a nurse then and a nurse now, I've had her number since the day I read it. At the time I was extremely alarmed by how ignorant someone touting herself as the would-be healthcare czar seemed to be re: what nurses actually do. She obviously has no respect for the critical role that we play in the treatment of patients. Now, as I reflect on her words, it occurs to me that, after 16 years of living in one executive mansion or another followed by two terms as a senator with a personal staff etc, she is completely out of touch with ordinary Americans.