75,000 Health Care Workers Walk The Picket Line

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Good morning,

President Biden was asked during a press conference what his advice is to the next House Speaker.

His response: “That’s above my pay grade.”

(Which is how we’re going to answer anything we don’t really want to answer from here on out.)

Have a good one,

Jill and Mosheh

🗞 HOT STRIKE FALL

Hot strike summer is becoming hot strike fall, and it’s now hitting the health care industry. More than 75,000 workers at Kaiser Permanente — the nation’s largest health-care nonprofit organization — went on strike Wednesday at hospitals and medical offices in five states from coast to coast after the company and labor negotiators couldn’t resolve a dispute over staffing levels.

It is a three day strike. And the union says this is the largest strike of health-care workers in U.S. history.

WHAT IS KAISER PERMANENTE
Kaiser Permanente serves nearly 13 million patients and operates 39 hospitals and more than 600 medical offices in California, Colorado, DC, Georgia, Hawaii, Maryland, Oregon, Virginia and Washington.

Kaiser has a different business model than other health care providers.

It’s funded by membership fees, and operates as both an insurance plan and a provider.
Patients pay that membership fee to access its services.
Kaiser was designed to be “a one-stop shop for all patients’ needs,” from primary care, lab testing, and even pharmacy services.

WHO’S ON STRIKE
The strike targets Kaiser hospitals and medical offices in California, Colorado, Oregon, Virginia, DC and Washington.

The striking workers include vocational nurses, emergency department technicians, radiology technicians, X-ray technicians, respiratory therapists, medical assistants, pharmacists and hundreds of other positions.
Notably doctors are not striking.

🚨Kaiser says all hospitals and emergency departments will remain open and they’ve hired thousands of temporary workers.

WHAT WORKERS WANT
The union says better pay and benefits, and for Kaiser to hire more workers and address a staffing shortage.

Some of the workers say they are burnt out and stretched too thin, seeing too many patients and too quickly.

❝

“We’re short-staffed and patients have to wait more than a month to be seen. By then, you’re either feeling better, dead or you have to pay more money out-of-pocket to visit urgent care.”

Lorena Jackson, Health Care Worker, via NBC News

SHOW ME THE MONEY
Although Kaiser Permanente is a nonprofit, it makes billions of dollars IN profit. And that’s part of the union’s complaints, saying that Kaiser Permanente is hoarding profits despite its nonprofit status.

KAISER SAYS…
For its part, the company said: “There has been a lot of progress in terms of talks with the union… and agreements have been reached on several specific proposals.

They say they remain committed to “reaching a new agreement that continues to provide our employees with market-leading wages, excellent benefits, generous retirement income plans, and valuable professional development opportunities.”

BIG PICTURE
This is just the latest in a series of labor disruptions across US industries:

In Kansas City, CVS pharmacists staged a walkout recently to protest working conditions that they say put patients at risk. In some cases, they said pharmacists are so overworked that they can’t even take a bathroom break.
- CVS agreed to make improvements.
In the auto industry, more than 25,000 members of the United Auto Workers are currently on strike against Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis.
Hollywood writers just ended a 150-day strike after reaching a deal for more pay and better benefits.
The Actors are still on strike, but there have been talks with the studios all week.

✔︎ Mo News Reality Check: The healthcare industry has really taken a hit over the past few years. In 2020, doctors, nurses and health care professionals would leave work to applause every night at 7pm. Now thousands of workers are fleeing the field because they don’t feel supported.

As Bloomberg notes: “America is in dire need of more health-care workers. There are shortages throughout the system, from doctors and nurses in hospital emergency rooms to aides who work in the homes of seniors and people with disabilities. The crisis has been brewing for years as aging baby boomers put unprecedented strain on the health-care system. The Covid-19 pandemic has only magnified the problem.”

⏳ SPEED READ

🚨NATION

📌 Trump says he’s focused on the White House amid calls for a speaker bid. (POLITICO)

📌 Inside the Menendez Indictment: A Mercedes and a Secretive Fatal Crash (NY TIMES)

📌 Supreme Court considers whether Americans with Disabilities Act ‘tester’ can sue hotels for non-compliance with the law (CNN)

📌 Man accused of kidnapping Charlotte Sena previously charged in domestic choking incident (NBC NEWS)

🌎 AROUND THE WORLD

📌 UK PM Rishi Sunak scraps major high-speed rail link; plans to phase out smoking (CNBC)

📌 Pakistan’s plan to evict thousands of Afghans ‘unacceptable’, says Taliban (AL JAZEERA)

📌 US will transfer weapons seized from Iran to Ukraine (CNN)

📌 Russian journalist who protested Ukraine war on live TV given 8½-year sentence (WSJ)

📱BUSINESS, SCIENCE & TECH

📌 GM secures new $6 billion credit line as UAW strike costs reach $200 million (CNBC)

📌 US services sector growth slows moderately (REUTERS)

📌 Apple releases fix for overheating iPhone 15 bug in iOS 17.0.3 (CNBC)

📌 More than 2,000 species of amphibians are threatened by extinction (NBC NEWS)

🎬 SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

📌 2030 World Cup set to be hosted by Spain-Portugal-Morocco with 3 South American countries added (AP)

📌 Simone Biles leads U.S. women's gymnastics team to world gold after teammate's injury (NBC NEWS)

📌 Meet this year’s MacArthur ‘genius grant’ recipients, including a hula master and the poet laureate (AP)

📌 Julia Ormond sues Harvey Weinstein for battery, CAA and Disney as enablers of sexual assault (VARIETY)

🗓 ON THIS DAY: OCTOBER 5

1961: Breakfast at Tiffany’s premiered.
1962: The first installment in the James Bond film series, Dr. No, had its world premiere; the British spy film was adapted from Ian Fleming's novel and starred Sean Connery.
1998: The Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives recommended impeachments hearings against President Bill Clinton.
2000: Gilmore Girls debuted on the WB.
2007: Following years of speculation—and denials—American track star Marion Jones pleaded guilty to steroid use, and several months later she was stripped of her five Olympic medals, three of which were gold.