BAD MEDICINE FOR NURSES

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" Magginkat " <magginkat

Wed, 7 Jun 2006 20:53:34 -0500

[GranniesAgainstGeorge] BAD MEDICINE FOR NURSES

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Posted by Jim Hightower

Listen to this Commentary American Nurses Association: 1-800-274-4262.

 

While senators loudly brag that they're building a big wall on the

Mexican border to keep out immigrants – they've very quietly bored a

gaping loophole in the law to let hundreds of thousands of low-income

foreign workers enter our country and take some of our most essential

professional positions.

 

A little-known provision pushed by the giant hospital chains will

throw open our borders to foreign nurses, allowing the hospital

industry to recruit low-paid trained nurses from the Philippines,

India, China, and Africa. These foreign nurses make under $2,000 a

year back home and can easily be lured here to take less than the

going rate of American professionals.

 

Already, some 14,000 nurses from abroad are given work visas to enter

the U.S. each year, but the senate bill, carried by Kansas Republican

Sam Brownback, simply removes the cap on these visas, shouting: " Y'all

come! " Not only does this corporate-sponsored approach drain medical

pros from countries that desperately need them, but it also guts the

middle-class pay structure and opportunities for homegrown nursing

professionals.

 

The hospital lobby wails that there's a nursing shortage here, so

there's no choice but to go outside our borders. Hogwash. There's a

shortage because hospitals won't pay what this highly-professional job

warrants – and because congress refuses to provide the funding needed

to educate more American nurses. Last year alone, some 150,000

qualified applicants were rejected by nursing schools because of

inadequate facilities and a lack of faculty to teach them.

 

This is Jim Hightower saying... What we have here is raw corporate

greed in action, writing bad immigration policy in order to gain cheap

foreign labor. Instead, let's invest in domestic nursing programs

that'll build America's middle class, while also improving the quality

of our health care. For more information, call the American Nurses

Association: 1-800-274-4262.

 

http://www.jimhightower.com//node/5821