Nurse Talk

Our Healthcare In America Correspondent, Donna Smith gives her perspective on the Three Tenors aka the CEO’s from JP Morgan Chase, Amazon, and Berkshire-Hathaway announcing they are forming a new healthcare company signaling the symbolic end of the ACA-reform era. What do we know, what do they know and what if anything does this do to the National Single Payer movement?

BIG Pharma paid $14.3 million to think tanks, disease advocacy groups and universities in 2015 alone. The money bought both assistance and silence. Fast forward three years and Congress just voted to make the first former drug industry executive the head of the Department of Health and Human Services. What’s going on? Nurse Talk Radio visits with Journalist, Randy Barrett about the lobbying, games...

Dotty Nygard is an ER nurse, former City Council Member, Patient Advocate, Mother and Grandmother and she is running for Congress to say enough is enough. She pledges: No more playing politics with our healthcare, our natural resources, our children’s education or our right to earn a living wage and support our families. If (when) Dotty is elected she will represent California’s Central Valley. To...

RN Rose Anne Wilson joins Nurse Talk Radio to talk about the protracted battle to keep Affinity Medical Center in Massillon, Ohio open. With a national trend toward rural, urban and small community hospital closures—RN’s in Massillon, Ohio find themselves in a battle with Quorum Health Care. Quorum is a spin-off of Franklin Tenn. Based Community Health Systems. The company began a divestiture spre...

California has an opportunity to make healthcare a human right and guarantee it to everyone in the Golden State. As Democrats in the State House continue to hold the Healthy California Act (S.B. 562) hostage, nurses and millions of others continue their push to move this bill forward. California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, Legislative Advocate Stephanie Roberson updates us on the st...

It's time to dispel the hoax of "entitlement reform" and no one does it better than President of Social Security Works, Nancy Altman. On the heels of Senate Republicans jamming through a historically unpopular tax bill that enriches their wealthy donors at the American people’s expense, the tax giveaway to the wealthy triggered a $400 billion in automatic cuts to Medicare in the next decade. Howev...

This week we share one of the most critical Nurse Talk Radio interviews of 2017---The State Of The Union with RN and Co-President of National Nurses United, Deborah Burger. At a time when the Republican Party is set on the destruction of organized labor in this country National Nurses United (the largest Union of Registered Nurses with over 150,000 members) is gaining members and momentum both nat...

In 2007 our Senior Healthcare Correspondent and Executive Director of Progressive Democrats of America Donna Smith, appeared in Michael Moore’s groundbreaking documentary about the American Healthcare System “SICKO”. Nine years later and we ask Donna how or if we’ve made any progress on Healthcare In this country.

Cohousing is gaining ground in the U.S. What is it and could it be a tool to curb isolation and the high cost of housing? Nurse Talk visits with Cohousing Coach Raines Cohen to find out just what it is and isn't. "A big myth about cohousing is that it's a commune", says Raines. Not true he says, its a form of intentional community in which neighbors commit to being a part of the community for ever...

RN and Chief Steward Of Maine State Nurses Association, Maureen Hayward, joins us for this Nurse Talk Special Edition podcast. We're talking about recent Legislation that was introduced to the Maine State Legislative Committee to hold hospitals accountable for elimination of major care facilities. Maureen says, "these cuts to services and closures by hospitals are not only bad for our patients but...

Having failed to repeal the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, the Trump Administration wants to open the door for states to dismantle this essential safety net program by allowing them new ways to deny care. Director of Public Policy for National Nurses United, and Sanders Institute Fellow, Michael Lighty visits with Nurse Talk for this Special Edition Podcast.

As a former public relations executive for healthcare giants Humana and Cigna, Wendell Potter knows all too well how and why journalism can be influenced by money. In 2006 he resigned from his job and became a whistle-blower testifying in Congress about the manipulative practices of his former industry. Since then, Wendell has been on a mission to bring truth and integrity back to journalism. His...

Thousands of lives changed in an instant when Northern California was hit by one of the worst suburban wildfires in the states history. With so many people displaced children of elder adults are finding themselves filling the role of "instant caregivers". Kira Reginato is an Elder Care Consultant and author of Tips For Helping Your Aging Parents, without losing your mind! She shares advice with th...

Listen to Christine Grant, RN from Washington DC. Christine was one of 50 nurses who went to Puerto Rico with the support of RNRN(Registered Nurses Response Network) and was part of a Congressional meeting where nurses submitted a report on conditions in Puerto Rico and called for immediate Congressional action.

Last year California became the fifth state to allow people with terminal illnesses to request pills from their doctors to end their lives. In the first six months the law was in effect, 111 terminally ill patients ended their lives that way, state officials said. Medical Aid In Dying, which has been practiced in six states for a combined 40 years and within those states not a single case of abuse...

Earth to Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon! Nurses never give up and neither will millions of Californians who support Single Payer Healthcare. By now it’s no secret the California Senate passed S.B. 562 on June 1 but it was then blocked from moving forward in the Assembly by Speaker Anthony Rendon. After a great deal of pressure from bill supporters to allow the bill out of the Rules Committee, he...

Nurse Talk Radio spoke with RN Cathy Kennedy on the evening prior to her departure to Puerto Rico. "As nurses whenever there's a call and there's an ask, we go. From the reports I've heard especially the elderly that have been without oxygen, without food or water, are at risk, everyone's at risk but particularly the children and the elderly," said Cathy who is an NNU Vice President and a voluntee...

Wendell Potter is known to many of us for his courageous stand against the healthcare industry. Having served as a corporate executive for Cigna and Humana for 20 years he left his job and decided to expose the unsavory PR practices of the insurance giants. Wendell went on to write two books, Deadly Spin and Nation on the Take. He is a strong advocate for truth in journalism and has just unveiled...

Check out our exclusive weekly feature Healthcare In America with Donna Smith. Get the latest on big pharma, healthcare debates and debacles, behind the scenes hospital and healthcare mergers, the Medicare For All movement -- and the RN's and progressive activists and organizations on the front lines of it all.

Nurse Talk Radio visits with Nancy Altman, President of Social Security Works about yet another disastrous healthcare replacement bill. The Graham Cassidy bill is worse than its predecessors and must be stopped. Nurses also rallied against the bill with Deborah Burger RN and Co-President of National Nurses United saying, “The provisions in the Graham-Cassidy Amendment would be devastating for mill...

Kaiser Health News correspondent Melissa Bailey joins Nurse Talk Radio for a discussion about her recent article about how Hospices are struggling with Opioids being stolen from Hospice patients by either relatives or in some cases Healthcare Workers. The discussion is not an indictment of hospice care in any way--but rather a call to action about the insidious nature of the opioid crisis.

According to a recent nationwide poll commissioned by the Doctor-Patient Rights Project (DPRP), more than 50 million Americans WITH health insurance may still lack access to essential treatments for chronic or persistent diseases because their insurance provider denied coverage. What's going on? Seth Ginsburg Co-Founder and CEO of the Global Healthy Living Foundation explains these disturbing find...

Flexibility is key when you are volunteering for a large-scale disaster such as the recent hurricane in Houston. RN Amy Bowen just returned from a week in Houston and Beaumont. Amy talks about how she and her fellow nurses from the Registered Nurse Response Network worked side by side with local medical professionals, who were also volunteering--to give aid to those in need. She came away inspired...

Faster than it had been approved in the Senate, House Speaker Anthony Rendon tabled S.B. 562 indefinitely. Rendon who is a Democrat said the bill was “woefully incomplete”. Where does the bill stand now? With us on our podcast is California Nurses Association Legislative Advocate, Stephanie Roberson. Stephanie talks about the way forward.

Part 1: Bridging the gap between conventional and alternative medicines, NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE IS ON THE RISE. Nurse Talk visits with Dr. Todd Born and Dr. Mimosa Tonnu. Both are doctors of Naturopathic Medicine. If you've ever been curious or interested in finding out the facts about Naturopathy join us for this great two-part podcast. http://www.bornnaturopathic.com