"Of all the awful truths that the past year has revealed, none is more stark than the reality that prioritizing the bottom lines of billionaires over the health and safety of Americans doesn’t work. As Covid-19 swept across the United States in 2020, fundamental flaws in this country’s for-profit health care system made it harder to test, treat, and vaccinate the most vulnerable among us. That cost lives, as doctors, nurses, and other frontline health care personnel sacrificed everything to care for the dying. It also cost taxpayers trillions of dollars, as Congress enacted one emergency funding bill after another in order to keep ahead of the crisis.
“The pandemic has highlighted in deadly detail what nurses have known for decades: Our current health care system, based on private insurance tied to employment, is a colossal failure and leaves far too many of our patients to suffer and die unnecessarily,” says Bonnie Castillo, the registered nurse who serves as executive director of the National Nurses United union. “While we mourn the more than 500,000 lives lost to Covid, we rededicate ourselves to the fight to ensure that everyone is provided with high-quality health care regardless of where they live, how much money they make, or their health, immigration, or employment status. Nurses will never rest until we get this done.""