By Gina Jordan
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wfsu/local-wfsu-897890.mp3
Tallahassee, FL – Nurses hope Governor Charlie Crist will listen to them as he listened to teachers and veto the Medicaid bill moving through both chambers. Gina Jordan reports they wore scrubs and carried banners as they shared their concerns with lawmakers at the Capitol Thursday.
More than a hundred nurses, most of them from Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, rallied on the fourth floor outside the Senate. They were led by Martha Baker, a registered nurse who serves as president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1991.
"We have serious concerns about the impact of the legislation on the 2.8-million Floridians now enrolled in Medicaid and the millions more who will be eligible for the program with the expansion of coverage under new healthcare reform."
Jackson Health System is Florida's largest safety net hospital. It provides nearly a third of the medical services received by the state's Medicaid patients. The state has reduced Medicaid reimbursements over the last several years, leaving the hospital millions of dollars in debt. Debra Diaz is a certified registered nurse anesthetist at Jackson.
"We would love to have the Medicaid reform bill vetoed by the governor, just like the teachers were able to veto that horrible bill concerning the teachers and tenure. I would love to see that we did not have Medicaid patients put in a for-profit HMO where the HMO gets to dictate what they can have done and what they can't have done, rather than having them given care based on what their need is."
The House bill would move most Medicaid recipients into a managed care plan over a five year period. The Senate version would add nineteen counties to a pilot program underway in five counties that puts Medicaid patients in such plans.
The financial situation at Jackson Health System may be looking up. Diaz says doctors and nurses have agreed to work with the administration on a sustainability project, looking for the best ways to save money at the bedside level. They have also contracted to give five-percent of their salary back to the hospital.
"Many of us are also giving up for this year our longevity bonus. Many of us are giving up our step increases. That comes to over ten-percent for a lot of people."
The nurses were flanked by Democratic legislators who have taken up their cause. They keep trying to get the Hospital Patient Protection Act signed into law, but the proposal has never made it out of committee. Representative Oscar Braynon of Miami sponsors the measure in the House.
"We may not get it passed this year, but it's my third time sponsoring it. It's my third session in the House, and I tell them, I'm going to sponsor this every year I'm here until we get it passed.'"
The bill would mandate nurse to patient ratios in each unit and give the caregiver the right to refuse unsafe patient assignments.