Hello all!!

  I got the link to this site from an email. I post on Dkos a lot under this same user name and I wanted to let you guys know about John Edwards new statements and plans for dealing with the nursing shortage and his response to Romney's healthcare plan. I also will post some links to older JRE diaries I have done. They provide a lot of background on Edwards, his positions in 03, his plans, I have several diaries that compare the plans of Edwards and Obama as well. So without further ado…

This is from the www.johnedwards.com website. I hope you enjoy the information. Edwards is addressing the root causes of the nursing shortage and offering free tuition for people who want to become nurses.  

To ensure his plan succeeds and delivers quality health care for everyone, we must address the nursing crisis. As president, Edwards will invest the resources we need to add 100,000 nurses within five years – by bringing back 50,000 RNs who have left the profession, while retaining even more, and graduating 50,000 new nurses.

Retaining Nurses by Respecting the Profession Edwards will keep skilled nurses from leaving the profession and bring back former nurses. Bringing back just 10 percent of the nurses who have left the profession will increase the number of veteran nurses serving America's patients by about 50,000. Edwards will:

Ensure Safe Staffing Levels: High patient-to-nurse ratios have been linked to increased medical errors, worse patient outcomes and high staff turnover. Edwards believes that we need requirements that ensure safe staffing levels, determined on a unit-by-unit level, with appropriate exceptions for emergencies. He will support hospitals in finding the nurses that they need to provide high quality care. [Aiken, 2002]

Eliminate Mandatory Overtime: When hospitals force nurses to work more than 12 hours at a time, it becomes difficult for nurses to provide top-quality care and they are more likely to quit their jobs. States like New Hampshire have begun to lead the way in restricting mandatory overtime, but we need a national solution. As president, Edwards will ban mandatory overtime for nurses, with limited, temporary exemptions for truly understaffed areas.

Improve Workplace Safety: The simple act of doing your job should not cause you harm. Edwards strongly opposed the Bush Administration's abandonment of real ergonomics standards. As president, he will implement a broad, mandatory ergonomics rule, and appoint officials who are committed to enforcing it. He will also help improve nurses' working conditions by offering resources to hospitals that commit to major improvements in nurses' working conditions – such as offering more time off, implementing new safety standards, and giving nurses a greater voice in hospital administration. He will also instruct the Department of Health and Human Services to lead a nationwide initiative on workplace safety and establish a presidential commission to recommend improvements in the nursing workplace, including protections from pandemic flu and safe patient handling.

Strengthen Nurses' Voices: Giving nurses a stronger voice will help keep nurses on the job. Edwards will strengthen labor laws to make it easier for nurses to organize and collectively bargain and reverse the court decision that deprived nearly 1 million of nurses and millions of other workers of the opportunity to join a union. He will also offer federal challenge grants to support responsible “magnet hospitals” that offer more training and mentoring, decent pay and benefits and give nurses a voice in hospital administration.

Increasing the Number of Young People Choosing Nursing as a Career Educating and training the next generation of health care workers is essential to meet the increased demand of a universal health care system. To add 50,000 new nurses to the profession within five years, Edwards will:

Add New Nurses to Critical Shortage Areas: Edwards will pay up to full tuition and fees for 50,000 new students to become nurses. In return, these nurses would agree to serve for at least four years where nurses are in critical short supply, such as rural hospitals and urban public hospitals.

Expand Educational Capacity: In addition, to ensure that schools have the resources to provide the new students with high-quality training, Edwards will invest to increase the capacity of the nation's nursing schools – including training and recruiting nursing faculty — by 30 percent to meet the challenge of nursing shortage. He will also support distance learning initiatives– like the current partnership between UNH and Granite State College – that can help bring advanced training to rural areas. [Manchester Union-Leader, 8/6/2006]

Create Partnerships with Hospitals: Classroom training is vital, but there is no substitute for experience. Edwards will support training partnerships of nursing schools and hospitals, like medical schools already have.

Reach Out to High School Students: To reach a new generation of nurses, Edwards will help high schools implement career education programs in nursing that combine applied skills with rigorous academics.
Promote Career Ladder Programs: There are hundreds of thousands of low-wage health care workers in hospitals and home care agencies across the country with the dedication and familiarity with the field to become professional nurses – but they don't have the time or money to go to nursing school. Edwards will support Career Ladder partnerships, where employers and unions help low-wage health care workers and displaced workers from other sectors move up the skills ladder with on-the-job training, time off for training and guaranteed placement. He will build on model programs like the successful workforce development labor-government partnership in Los Angeles County. [Fitzgerald, 2006]  

I am going to repeat some of the best parts of this plan so people cannot miss them.

Add New Nurses to Critical Shortage Areas: Edwards will pay up to full tuition and fees for 50,000 new students to become nurses. In return, these nurses would agree to serve for at least four years where nurses are in critical short supply, such as rural hospitals and urban public hospitals.

Reach Out to High School Students: To reach a new generation of nurses, Edwards will help high schools implement career education programs in nursing that combine applied skills with rigorous academics.
Promote Career Ladder Programs: There are hundreds of thousands of low-wage health care workers in hospitals and home care agencies across the country with the dedication and familiarity with the field to become professional nurses – but they don't have the time or money to go to nursing school. Edwards will support Career Ladder partnerships, where employers and unions help low-wage health care workers and displaced workers from other sectors move up the skills ladder with on-the-job training, time off for training and guaranteed placement. He will build on model programs like the successful workforce development labor-government partnership in Los Angeles County. [Fitzgerald, 2006]

What does Edwards think of Romney's health care plan?

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Senator John Edwards released the following statement about the health care plan Governor Mitt Romney is announcing today.

“Mitt Romney's cure is worse than the disease. Not surprisingly, he's unwilling to take on the big insurance and drug companies. As a result, it will make a dysfunctional health care system even worse.

“Governor Romney's tax deductions will help the high-income and healthy the most, at the expense of the millions of uninsured Americans who need help the most. It will encourage businesses to drop worker coverage — forcing families into the dysfunctional individual market with high premiums and out-of-pocket costs — and may even increase the number of uninsured Americans. Taking money away from emergency rooms is downright dangerous. And by turning his back on universal coverage, Governor Romney is also turning his back on effective ways to bring down health care costs such as check-ups, preventive medicine, and managing chronic diseases.

“There are 45 million Americans without health insurance, and many live shorter, less healthy lives as a result. If universal health care was good enough for Massachusetts, why isn't it good enough for the rest of the country?”

OH SNAP!!!!

Of all the candidates Edwards is the best on the issues, the best on the rhetoric and througout the last several years he has put his money where his mouth is. College for Everyone, donating 8 or more percent of his income since 98 to charity, The Poverty Center, donating proceeds from his book to charity, walking on picket lines, campaining for minimum wage in at least 6 states. Edwards is the real deal.

Here are the links I promised:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/19/0136/79518

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/8/16/44955/5317

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/20/499/83618

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/20/499/83618

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/7/14/17302/2962

These are a sample. Once you get to Dkos you can click on my name and scroll through all the other Edwards diaries I have done. They tend to be very policy related and very factual. Enjoy!