In 2021, CVS was found to be the largest known donor to the Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, a dark-money corporate front group focused on blocking any and all health care reform efforts in the U.S. — most notably Medicare for All. This year, we turned up the heat in our corporate campaign calling on CVS Health to stop bankrolling anti-Medicare for All efforts.
Our work this year built on the incredible actions that took place in 2021, including driving hundreds of phone calls directly to executives, Covid-safe solo actions at more than 400 stores, media attention, and more.
Here’s what we accomplished together this year:
In January, dozens of volunteers joined us for workshops to learn how to write effective letters to the editor (LTEs) in their local newspapers about CVS Health’s ties to funding anti-Medicare for All efforts. Some were published!
Then, in February, more than 200 activists visited CVS stores across the country, leaving a Valentine’s Day card behind in the card aisle with our request that CVS stop breaking our hearts by blocking Medicare for All!
In late February, we launched a contest asking artists to create and submit pieces that captured the spirit of our campaign and collectively demand that CVS stop blocking health care as a human right.
With an open call to artists around the country with monetary prizes for top winners, dozens of incredible pieces were submitted. We were honored to select six top prize winners. We shared their artwork when the winners were announced this past spring, but you can check them out here again!
Here is the artwork by our top prize winner, Ella Endo:
CVS: Checking Every Heart Rate, by Ella Endo
On May 7, volunteers held Covid-safe canvass actions at CVS stores across the country, amplifying our demands on the weekend before CVS Health’s annual shareholder meeting, the largest and most important day in their corporate calendar. Together we collected petition signatures, talked to customers, and made sure that CVS heard us loud and clear! And then a few days later...
On May 11, NNU President and RN, Jean Ross joined CVS Health’s virtual annual shareholder meeting to ask their executives directly: Which side are you on?
Jean was bolstered by the incredible amount of organizing that our movement had accomplished over the last year, and as a result, CVS was forced to respond on the spot to our collective demand that they stop funding the Partnership.
CEO Karen Lynch’s response — claiming that CVS was technically not currently donating to the Partnership, while simultaneously defending everything they stand for — was wholly inadequate. You can watch Jean’s recap about what happened during that infamous interaction back in May here.
With CVS giving Jean such an inadequate response at the shareholder meeting in May, we knew we had to dial up the pressure even further.
So after months of sharing our national petition and collecting a total of more than 35,000 signatures from customers demanding that CVS publicly and permanently cut ties from the Partnership, we showed up in force at one of CVS’s most iconic storefronts in the country on the Las Vegas strip.
Our demand was clear — CVS: Stop Gambling with Our Health!
We rallied outside the store and hand delivered the petition signatures to staff inside the store, along with a letter stating our demands.
Our action was covered by multiple local news outlets, and CVS was forced to respond to our action when asked for comment by the Fox 5 news station in Las Vegas. Sadly, they repeated their same inadequate stance from earlier in the year. Sandy Reding, RN and Vice President of NNU, talked more about the action in a short video that you can watch here.
Nurses and activists outside the CVS store on the Las Vegas strip, led by NNU Vice President and RN Sandy Reding.
We gave CVS’ executives until October 4 to respond to our demand that they publicly and permanently cut ties with the Partnership. Unsurprisingly, they did not meet our demand and instead only repeated their same tired talking points — distancing themselves from the Partnership while trying to defend them at the same time.
So together with volunteers and nurses we held a national day of action on October 15. Actions took place at 22 stores around the country — we collected hundreds more signatures, talked to customers, and made clear to CVS that we would not accept their cowardly responses!
Our collective organizing against CVS Health this year was a powerful corporate campaign. We are immensely proud of the work that we’ve done together, and grateful for all of the incredible volunteers who have joined us.
We know that in order to win Medicare for All in the U.S., we’ll need to directly take on and challenge the corporations that stand in our way. We plan to keep that work up in 2023, and we hope you’ll join us.
In solidarity,
Nurses’ Campaign to Win Medicare for All
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