News of the Month — November 2021
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NUHW Kaiser Vallejo member Brandi Plumley was included in an NPR story about delays for services at Kaiser’s mental health care system and SB 221, which orders the insurer to provide patients with follow-up appointments within 10 business days. Plumley also did a live interview on KGO radio about SB 221.
NUHW Kaiser Sacramento member Kenneth Rogers and results from an NUHW survey were featured in a study by the Sacramento Bee ahead of the November 19 sympathy strike against Kaiser. The Center Square, Antioch Herald, Sacramento Business Journal, Petaluma Argus Courier , Daily Republic, Modern Healthcare, Becker’s Hospital Review , Vallejo Times Herald, Santa Rosa Press Democrat , The Mercury News, Sonoma Index-Tribune, Pleasanton Weekly, and San Francisco Chronicle also published stories about NUHW’s one-day labor stoppage.
An NUHW Kaiser member from Maui Lani Clinic was quoted in a story by the Hawaii Free Press, Honolulu Star-Advertiser and ABC affiliate KITV on Hawaii Public Radio about members voting in favor of a strike authorization and calling for an investigation into Kaiser’s violations of laws ensuring mental health care parity.
The Sacramento Bee, Modern Healthcare and Becker’s Hospital Review reported on social medical workers, therapists and other health care workers at Sutter Center for Psychiatry in Sacramento voting overwhelmingly to join NUHW.
A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that the average premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage rose 4 percent to $22,221 this year, with workers paying $5,969 towards the cost of their coverage. Fifty-eight percent of small firms and 99 percent of large firms offer health benefits to at least some of their workers with employers boosting mental health and telemedicine amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Public Policy Institute of California survey found that 43 percent of Californians agree and 38 percent somewhat agree that it is important for workers to organize so that employers do not take advantage of them. Democrats, Republicans, and independents all at least somewhat agree that it is important for workers to organize with agreement highest among Latinos (54 percent African Americans (50 percent) and Los Angeles residents (50 percent).