Media Fail: Single-Payer Advertisement Dressed up as News Editorial

The local media is getting faker and faker by the minute.

Check out this editorial pushing single-payer health care through the powerful yet corrupt nurses union.

In reality, it's a brazen advertisement and political ad.

Nurses aren’t giving up on California’s single-payer push

To some, the California Nurses Association’s political tactics in pushing for a single-payer health system seemed a bit, well, extreme.

Single-payer health care is extreme!

The massive government takeover of our medical care system is tyranny wrapped in up in bandages with a red cross on top. We cannot allow this perversion to happen!

Never mind the raucous demonstrations it brought to the state Capitol in recent weeks, the “shame on you” chants in the hallways, the repeated unfurling of banners in the rotunda despite admonitions from law enforcement.

Finally, the media are covering the aggressive antics of the Left.

Or are they rather promoting this tender-hearted activism to show that the Nurses Association has the best interests at heart of everyone else in the state of California. FYI: Single-payer is a total disaster for California, and it will ruin countless lives, pushing men and women out of work or deeper into poverty.

To further the nurses’ cause, the union’s executive director, RoseAnn DeMoro, tweeted out a picture of the iconic California grizzly bear being stabbed in the back with a knife emblazoned with the name of a powerful state lawmaker who stalled the single-payer bill sponsored by the union.

That grizzly bear stabbed in the back better represents every citizen who is witnessing his rights getting trampled on as well as his wallet getting raided!

Before and after that tweet, the legislator — a Democrat — said he was besieged by death threats.

Wow! The progressives are not so progressive, are they?

Meanwhile, the union’s public relations guy blasted a blogger for Mother Jones magazine — named after the famous union firebrand — for being insufficiently liberal in his single-payer coverage. “Maybe you can recommend the name of your magazine be changed … to Milton Friedman, which would better reflect your class sympathies,” communications director Chuck Idelson wrote acidly.

Now this is the total insanity of the regressive left! They go after Mother Jones Magazine for being insufficiently liberal? Really?! Wow, the Left is eating its own, and I love watching every minute of it!

Dramatic and, to some, offensive, tactics are nothing new for this California union of about 100,000 registered nurses, which has made a name for itself in the state and nationally as a progressive and aggressive political powerhouse. Its reach has only broadened with the advent of social media. Leader DeMoro counts more than 29,000 Twitter followers, and CNA’s operation has a knack for mobilizing protesters and drawing crowds.

29,000 Twitter followers? That's it?! Omar Navarro has twice the number, as do some Congressmen. Not very impressive. Besides, DeMoro is as anti-social as they come!

“The politicians are afraid of these angry intense grass-roots activists” mobilized by the union, said Mike Madrid, a Republican and principal at the public affairs firm Grassroots Lab, who believes the tactics could backfire. “Using fear and intimidation as a tactic in the legislature usually doesn’t get you too far.”

Mr. Madrid, I hope and pray that these tactics backfire. I also hope and pray that the Supreme Court of the United States will stick a knife in the back of Big Labor and end their coercive, abusive, anti-Constitutional reign over employees. Labor unions have been forcing individual citizens to work for them for years, and then take their money to funnel into candidates and causes without the employees' permission.

Unthinkable. Unconscionable. Unacceptable.

Others are impressed with the union’s drive and creativity, recalling how in 2005 CNA members taunted California’s then-governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, trailing him wherever he went to protest his attempts to roll back hard-won nurse-to-patient requirements in hospitals. Activists dressed up as the Republican leader and staged theatrical protests at baseball games, rock concerts and even the San Francisco Ritz-Carlton.

They are bullies, and bullies need to be punched back--twice as hard! Political figures need to get a backbone and stand up for every citizen of the state of California.

In the single-payer fight, the union has shown it will go just as fervently after Democratic leaders in a heavily Democratic legislature. While the union isn’t responsible for everything freelance activists do in a campaign, the Assembly Democratic caucus has condemned the “bullying tactics” and violent rhetoric in the CNA-led effort.

Oh boo hoo! The Democrats don't like to be bullied, but for the last ten years the Democratic legislature has routinely harassed homeowners, small businesses, gun owners, city officials, etc. How do they like it?

Though not always admired for its approach, the CNA often gets results — or works up a sweat trying. It counts among its legislative successes the 1999 passage of the strict nurse-to-patient ratios, the nation’s first such mandate to bolster staffing in hospitals. It has fended off attempts to overturn that law, worked to protect employee pensions and pushed for campaign financing reform. And it lent its considerable political muscle to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.

Notice, then, that the most organized and aggressive of unions cannot effect ultimate change in every issues. The needs of other special interests or the galvanized voting public can counter-act just about anything that an abusive labor union can dish out.

Historically, the nurses have had the upper hand in labor negotiations, says Joanne Spetz, director of the Health Workforce Research Center at UC-San Francisco. That’s partly because in some areas of California it represents most or all of the registered nurses, including many thousands who work for the managed-care giant Kaiser Permanente. (Kaiser Health News, which produces California Healthline, is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.)

And yet I have heard many nurses tell me that Kaiser is evil. If they feel that way, why work in a Kaiser hospital?

The union, founded in 1903, has always “punched above its weight,” said Thad Kousser, chair of the political science department at University of California-San Diego.

Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a professor of public policy communication at the University of Southern California, agreed.

“I’m not sure we would be discussing single-payer if not by the push of the nurses’ association,” Jeffe said.

The union, which is affiliated with National Nurses United, makes no apologies for its approach, saying it is determined to hold lawmakers accountable. And it has no intention of backing off its campaign for a single-payer system in the state, an effort that would put the California government in charge of funding health care.

And even then, this abusive union cannot defeat the laws of supply and demand. The state of California cannot pay its pension obligations. The roads are in disrepair. The corruption throughout the state is rife. Men and women routinely do not feel safe in their own cities or counties. The middle-income earners are fleeing the state, and they tend to be the primary taxpayers.

What is the state of California going to do?

“We’re going to demand that the legislature legislate and move this bill,” said Michael Lighty, director of public policy at California Nurses Association/National Nurses United. The group on Tuesday plans to stage a “people’s assembly health committee” mock hearing in Sacramento.

Lighty said that the rallies reflect Californians’ desperation and fear about losing health coverage under Republican proposals to repeal Obamacare more than anything else.

Baloney. Voters are losing health insurance already, and the loss got worse when Obamacare was passed.

Although Lighty said the union’s elected nurse leaders collectively decide on its actions, supporters and critics alike see DeMoro as setting the tone and agenda.

Of course she is. She is a bully and Big Labor boss out at all costs to push her perverse agenda. I am so tired of these aggressive, abusive labor unions pushing their outrageous, unsustainable agenda onto every other Californian. This is the kind of abusive insanity which defines California Politics.

People focus on DeMoro because she “pushes the parameters of the politically possible” and that rubs “defenders of the status quo” the wrong way, Lighty said. DeMoro, on vacation, was unavailable for comment.

Former state senator Sheila Kuehl, who attempted several times to pass a single-payer bill, said the California Nurses Association has always been “very aggressive for the things they believed in.”

Kuehl is now one of the Board members on the Board of Supervisors. Heaven help us!

A smaller health consumer advocacy group persuaded Kuehl to carry the bill for the first time in 2003-04, Kuehl recalled, but the California Nurses Association brought more visibility and credibility when they joined her effort. Eventually, it became a co-sponsor.

Since when have labor unions joined as co-sponsors for anything? Who is writing the rules in Sacramento? Who permits this corruption?

“CNA, as fierce and progressive as they are, gave the idea a real boost,” said Kuehl, now a Los Angeles County supervisor.

Two of her bills passed through the legislature, but both were vetoed by then-Gov. Schwarzenegger.

One of the few good things done by the last Republican governor. and we can certaily put "Republican" in quotation marks. By the way, let's be honest. The Democraticallly-controlled legislature never believed that the legislation would pass. It was all political theater, from beginning to end.

Kuehl doesn’t buy the argument that the union’s in-your-face strategies may hurt their chances of passing single-payer later. Union members made nasty comments about Schwarzenegger at their rallies and that didn’t hurt the CNA’s reputation, she said.

Let's not forget that the fawning press, then and now, was never going to say anything negative about labor unions and their aggressive, progressive agenda. All of that is changing now.

Madrid, the Republican political consultant in Sacramento, says the CNA’s aggressive advocacy for a single-payer health system reflects the intense political polarization seen around the country right now — as well as conflicts among members of left-leaning causes.

More mainstream Democrats, including Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon — the recipient of online death threats — say the legislature’s priority is to defend California against a GOP-proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act and massive cuts to Medicaid, the state and federal health plan for the poor.

Rendon as mainstream? Don't make me laugh!

Rendon also said the single-payer bill, though approved by the state Senate, was “woefully incomplete” and needed to be recast. Among other problems, it carried a $400 billion annual price tag , according to an analysis by the state Senate Appropriations Committee.

Yes. That $400 billion marker is a bit steep, folks.

But the CNA sees an opportunity for broader change and believes single-payer can move forward even as the state fights the Republican proposals in Washington.

If the single-payer bill stays idle in the legislature this year, the group vows to try again next year, making it a campaign issue in the 2018 elections.

“The best way to fight the GOP is to have an alternative,” Lighty said.

How about free markets?

California Healthline correspondent Ana B. Ibarra contributed to this report. California Healthline is a service of the California Health Care Foundation produced by Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.