An Attack on One Is an Attack on All
As union members, we often say that an attack against one of us is an attack on all of us. Our strength lies in our collective power — whether out on a picket line, speaking out against hospital closures or advocating for better policies. By combining our numbers and our voices, we can make a difference.
Early Attacks
We know that bosses and the powers that be will use divide-and-conquer strategies to get what they want. Today it will be one of us. Tomorrow it will be another one of us — or all of us.
When the new federal administration came in, it immediately attacked our immigrant patients and transgender patients. It threatened immigration raids on our hospitals, reversing the long-standing policy of hospitals being “sensitive locations.” The administration threatened withholding funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care, and we saw some hospital systems cancel appointments and change their policies to be less inclusive.
NYSNA nurses pushed back. We requested information from every employer on their policies to ensure they are protecting our patients’ and nurses’ rights, and we reported what we were seeing in our facilities. We emphasized that federal law is clear that all patients have the right to seek emergency medical care and that all patients’ private medical information, including immigration status, is protected. We emphasized that New York’s civil rights laws protect all patients from discrimination. However, we are still concerned about the chilling effect these policy changes will have, and we suspect many patients who need care will not seek it.
Shock and Awe
It turns out that those early attacks were just a warmup to much broader and extreme attacks on our patients and healthcare system. In March, Congress passed a budget that would mean more than $880 billion in spending cuts to fund tax cuts for the super-rich and would decimate Medicaid.
One in 3 adult New Yorkers and almost half of New York’s children access healthcare through Medicaid. New York City’s public hospitals get 55% of their revenue from Medicaid. Upstate rural access hospitals get 55% of their revenue from Medicare and Medicaid, with most of their patients dually eligible.1
Simply put, if the government enacts these drastic cuts to Medicaid, we will see millions of our patients lose access to care and see hospitals close. Our private sector hospitals — which, for their own profitability, rely on public and safety-net hospitals caring for a disproportionate share of uninsured, underinsured and Medicaid patients — will also suffer financially. Hospitals will likely pass that suffering on to their nurses and patients in the form of service closures and staffing cuts. In our collective bargaining fights, nurses will again hear that hospitals cannot afford to improve staffing and wages and benefits — and for once, they’d be telling the truth.
Medicaid is a matter of survival for children, seniors, people with disabilities and people of low income, but extreme Medicaid cuts are an attack on all of us. These Medicaid cuts are part of a campaign against our entire healthcare system and social safety-net that serve the majority of Americans. Although our healthcare system is far from perfect, these cuts will make it much worse by reducing access to care, decimating hospital funding, reducing nurse staffing and worsening healthcare disparities.
Medicaid isn’t the only extreme cut. Through executive orders, this administration has already slashed federal staff and spending, affecting 911 survivors, veterans, public health, infectious disease and other scientific research, and union and civil rights.
Defending Healthcare for All
The time to push back on cruel and unnecessary cuts is now. The time to protect our patients, our practice and our working conditions is now. With our mission as nurses to advocate for all patients and our values of solidarity as unionists, we need to take action to stop the cuts. I am so proud that nurses have already begun — by marching in the streets, testifying and contacting their members of Congress.
Nurses care for ALL New Yorkers. By staying united, we still have a chance to defend healthcare for all.
Sources
1 New York State Department of Health Hospital Institutional Cost Reports, 2021.
