The Growing Movement!

In 2016, NFSP began outreach to nursing organizations and nursing schools around the state. Since NFSP started, the movement for single payer health care has grown in leaps and bounds in spite of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. More than 35,000 Oregonians have signed HCAO’s Statement of Support for universal, publicly funded health care. HCAO now has over 130 member and endorsing organizations throughout the state. Single-payer and related legislation has been advancing in Oregon. In 2019, the Task Force on Universal Health Care was established and provided its recommendations. In November of 2022, Oregonians passed Ballot Measure 111 to put access to healthcare as a fundamental right in its Constitution. In 2023, the Oregon legislature passed SB 1089 to create the Universal Health Plan Governance Board which will soon begin its work.

On the national level, the movement for Medicare for All has seen an enormous boost with the Bernie Sanders’ campaign. There are now single payer bills in both chambers of Congress that have gained significant numbers of co-sponsors each year.

 

Nurses for Single Payer – The Beginning 

Nurses for Single Payer (NFSP) began in January 2011 statewide, all-day, Oregon Single Payer Conference, which was held in the First Unitarian Church of Portland, with approximately 500 attendees.

NFSP grew out of the Portland Jobs with Justice (JWJ) Health Care Committee, where David Young, Dana Welty, and Betsy Zucker met. We had been working for single payer for several years. We felt that it was important to mobilize and publicize the voices of nurses in the fight for universal health care. Three of us (David, Pamela Maciokas and myself) built the Big Nurse puppet, which greeted folks outside the Unitarian Church conference in 2011. Several of us from JWJ had helped organize the conference, and we called together a gathering of nurses over lunch, exchanged contact information, and decided to continue to meet. So began NFSP. Dana Welty and I were among the initial organizers of the group. She’s was a neonatal RN at OHSU and very active in Jobs with Justice at that time with the Health Care Committee. Dana also represented the Oregon Nurses Association (ONA) at JWJ.

We started an email list for NFSP, had numerous meetings in members” homes, and organized to support the lobby days and rallies in Salem for the single payer bill beginning in 2011. We made NURSES FOR SINGLE PAYER buttons. Kathy Birch got involved after she saw me wearing one. Carole Most got involved with NFSP for a number of years.

In March 2011, we rallied at the state capitol for the state single payer bill. Dana, clearly identifying herself as an RN, was one of the featured speakers. We carried signs identifying ourselves as nurses. NFSP continued to be active with house parties hosted by Kathy Birch and Todd Karakashian, and several activities at schools of nursing. Our goal was to educate and inform nurses about the single payer movement before HCAO’s newsletters and website largely supplanted that need. Nurses joined us, or our email list, by word of mouth. We have been a presence at every statewide rally and lobby day for single payer since 2011. NFSP members, with Big Nurse and our banner, have participated in other public events in the Portland area, as well as tabling at nursing conferences.

NFSP was one of the earliest groups to formally endorse what was called AHCAO (the Act for Health Care for All Oregon–the 2011 single payer bill) introduced by then Representative Michael Dembrow. Subsequently, NFSP was one of the first organizational members of the newly named statewide organization, Health Care for All-Oregon (HCAO), in 2012. David Young was very involved in the extensive planning to create the member organization now known as HCAO and helped write the original Oregon single payer bill. Dana was instrumental in ONA’s (Oregon Nurses’ Association) endorsement of the state single payer bill and their initial membership in HCAO. Several nurses who were involved continued to be active in the broader single payer movement, Yuriko Lee as leader of HCAO Washington County and Maria Grumm with the HCAO Faith Caucus.

For several years NFSP held meetings and we held together through an email list where Betsy Zucker would alert folks to events, activities, and articles to read. We briefly became part of the “health professionals caucus” of HCAO, and then with new blood from Chris Tanner, Nancy Sullivan, and Tom Sincic, we morphed into a new, more focused, professional and powerful group!

–Betsy Zucker, NFSP, originally written for the HCAO Newsletter (January 2016). Updated November 2023

 

Nurses for Single Payer – The Story Continues

In 2015, Chris Tanner retired and was looking for something to do. Dr. Tanner was the Professor Emeritus at Oregon Health & Science University School of Nursing where she served on faculty for nearly 35 years. At OHSU, she served as Director of Research Development and Utilization, Associate Dean for the Undergraduate Programs, and Interim Dean. She taught in the baccalaureate, masters and doctoral programs and was the recipient of many teaching awards. From 2001-2010, Dr. Tanner was one of the principal leads in the development of the Oregon Consortium for Nursing Education. In that role, she traveled to nursing schools around the state and worked with deans and faculty, getting to know them well. When Chris mentioned her interest in HCAO, Nancy Sullivan thought hard about a meaningful role for her, and took her to coffee with Dr. Sam Metz. Sam proposed that Chris use her experience, skills, and contacts around Oregon to recruit nursing educators and leaders as advocates, engaging them with an educational presentation about universal, publicly funded health care.

It made sense on several fronts:

• Nurses work with people who need health care; we hear our patients’ stories, and we “get it” about the devastating consequences of care being denied or curtailed because of access issues.
• Nurses are valued and respected members of their communities – we consistently rank at the top of polls asking Americans which profession they trust the most.
• Nurses live and work in every community in Oregon, and are involved and active in community concerns.

By 2015, Nurses for Single Payer had lost some of its energy, enthusiasm, and involvement – of course, Big Nurse was still showing up at rallies and events, and nurses were active in HCAO and in Jobs with Justice, but NFSP was floundering; it had been somewhat subsumed by the HCAO Healthcare Provider Caucus, and that group was also struggling. Carole Most, who was one of the early activists, proposed that we try to re-energize the nurses. About six of us, including longtime members Betsy Zucker, Kathy Birch, and David Young, got together at Chris’s house and listened to her proposal – we would reach out to nursing educators in the 14 nursing programs around the state – go to meet with them in person to outline our plan for Oregon nurses to become leaders in the campaign for universal health care. Through these nursing leaders, we would recruit nursing students, hospital and community nurses, nurse practitioners and nurse-midwives in communities all over Oregon!

Currently, NFSP has plans for presentations at nursing schools in the Portland area and beyond. We have engaged the Oregon Student Nurses Association. We are developing a curriculum that we hope can be used for practicing nurses to get continuing education credits through the Oregon Nurses Association; and we are pursuing other opportunities to present at nursing schools around the state and at professional meetings sponsored by various nursing organizations. We have a website, a Power Point presentation about the rationale for single payer from a nurse’s point of view; NFSP buttons which we wear and distribute to other nurses. The Board meets on a regular basis to discuss potential initiatives and to develop those that we have started.

In 2015 , the New York State Nursing Association (NYSNA) was instrumental in getting a single-payer bill passed in the New York State House of Delegates. On a national level, National Nurses United has endorsed Bernie Sanders for President because of his stand on single-payer health care and has made Medicare for All a principal part of their “Nurses Campaign to Heal America.” In 2022, ONA was instrumental in passing Measure 111 which put access to healthcare as a fundamental right in Oregon’s Constitution. NFSP believes that we have a key role in achieving universal, publicly funded health care and we are bringing our energy and enthusiasm to working toward that goal – everybody in, nobody out!

–Originally written by Nancy Sullivan, NFSP, (January 2016). Updated November 2023.