[2]National Nurses United
Hi there,
Before we close the books on 2021, we wanted to look back and reflect on
our incredible work together this year.
We were very busy so this email is long, but we couldn’t be prouder. While
Covid impacted our ability to organize in person, we found new ways to
organize and show our collective power. Thank you as always for making all
this possible.
Together, here’s just some of what we accomplished in 2021:
Increased the number of cosponsors on H.R. 1976, the Medicare for All Act of
2021
When a new session of Congress begins, every bill from previous sessions
must be reintroduced. We knew that the reintroduction of Medicare for All
would be a big moment to not only secure new cosponsors but also ensure
that all previous cosponsors signed on again.
So beginning in January, we started preparing for the reintroduction by
meeting virtually with dozens of members of Congress asking them to be an
original cosponsor. We also held our first National Strategy Call of the
year with speakers Rep. Debbie Dingle and Ady Barkan.
On March 17, the Medicare for All Act of 2021 (H.R. 1976) was introduced
with 112 original cosponsors! Shortly after, we unveiled our national
strategy for the rest of the year – highlighting a total of 40 key
congressional districts to focus our efforts on.
Through our local pressure campaigns, we celebrated a series of new
cosponsors that brought us to a total of 117.
* Rep. Mike Quigley (IL-05) cosponsored on March 26 after receiving
pressure from local activists.
* Rep. Kweisi Mfume (MD-07) signed on to H.R. 1976 on April 8 after a
pressure campaign led by Maryland Progressive Healthcare Coalition.
* Rep. Betty McCollum (MN-05) cosponsored the bill on May 13 after a
years-long pressure campaign led by dozens of local groups and after
meeting with nurses from the Minnesota Nurses Association.
* Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA-19) signed on to the bill on June 22 after a
pressure campaign from CNA and the Santa Clara County Single Payer
Health Care Coalition.
* Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-01) signed on to H.R. 1976 on July 16 after
winning a special election.
In August, we held one of our largest National Strategy Calls to date with
well over 1,000 attendees. We were joined by Senator Bernie Sanders and
NNU President Deborah Burger, RN, where we unveiled our plan to run
pressure campaigns in four key House districts via texting, calling,
postcarding, and a national Day of Action. All of the representatives in
these districts had signed on to previous Medicare for All legislation but
had yet to cosponsor H.R. 1976.
On November 6, we held our national Day of Action in these four House
districts with massive car caravans, mobile billboard trucks, ads in local
newspapers, and projection actions.
[1]Slideshow of photos from Day of Action
In December, we were successful in getting one of our priority
representatives, John Garamendi (CA-03), to agree to cosponsor the bill,
bringing our total to 118 – more than we had in the last session of
Congress!
Hosted two sessions of the Medicare for All Leadership School
In March, hundreds of people applied to join the first ever Medicare for
All Leadership School. The goal of the school was to enhance the skill
sets and knowledge of social movement history of Medicare for All
activists, whether they were new to the movement or had been organizing
for a long time.
The school covered the background of the fight to win Medicare for All and
the theories of social change that inform it, advanced organizing skills,
and how those skills could be implemented into real world organizing. On
June 8, 37 activists graduated from the first cohort and immediately got
to work organizing in their communities.
In September, we began our second session of the Leadership School with 33
students graduating from the program in November.
[2]Photo of graduation
Held CVS Health Accountable for funding anti-Medicare for All efforts
In April, The Intercept broke news that CVS quietly gave a $5 million
donation to the biggest anti-Medicare for All dark money group, the
Partnership for America’s Healthcare Future – the largest donation to the
Partnership ever.^1
We mobilized into action starting on May 13 – the day of CVS Health’s
annual shareholders meeting. During the meeting, we drove 365 phone calls
into top executives demanding that they stop bankrolling anti-Medicare for
All efforts.
In September, we held a public education panel, CVS Health, The Future of
Health Care, and the Fight for Medicare for All, and over 2,000 people
signed up to attend.
All of this culminated in our National CVS Day of Action, where we posted
CVS style receipts on the doors of hundreds of stores across the country
demanding that they stop funding anti-Medicare for All efforts.
Due to popular demand, we kept our CVS solo-actions going through October
and by the end of the month, we reached 400 actions in 27 states in total
including at the CVS Health corporate headquarters in Rhode Island!
[3]Sldieshow of CVS actions and event map
Mobilized to pass historic single-payer health care in California
Earlier this year, California had the opportunity to establish CalCare, a
guaranteed, single-payer health care system for all California residents.
While lawmakers chose to delay action on the bill until January 2022 — we
got to work right away preparing for our next window of opportunity to
pass AB 1400.
In July, we held a CalCare Statewide Strategy Call where we launched our
plan for the fall to focus on organizing in 33 priority Assembly
Districts.
In August, we kicked off our CalCare texting program where we eventually
texted over 3 million California voters about CalCare across 33 districts.
We also texted 300,000 Spanish speaking voters in California with the help
of our Spanish language texting team.
Then in September, we launched our statewide phone banks to call the
60,000 new supporters we identified from our texting program. Hundreds of
volunteers took part in statewide phone banks and postcard writing parties
for CalCare. In total, we ended the year with over 24,000 calls made and
12,000 postcards sent to voters in key districts!
In September, we also hosted “CalCare Fest” with hundreds of attendees
around the state where we held workshops on how to spread the word about
CalCare, launched a petition signature competition, and hosted a massive
text bank.
[4]Slideshow of CalCare events
This month, we hosted our final CalCare Statewide Strategy Call of the
year to gear up for the return of AB 1400 in January, where we announced
our January 8 Day of Action.
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This year has been a WILD ride. But, despite everything, we were able to
accomplish so much in 2021 thanks to people like you stepping up and taking
action with us.
Looking ahead we still have so much more to do. Covid has put into focus
the purpose and stakes of our work – to protect nurses, patients, and
communities and fight harder than ever before for Medicare for All. In
2022, we’ll need to escalate our pressure on Congress and the corporate
interests that bankroll them in order to win.
Thank you for all your support and efforts, and we can’t wait to keep
growing this movement with you.
Happy New Year,
Nurses’ Campaign to Win Medicare for All
1 - [ [link removed] ]The Intercept
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