Month: October 2023

More than 75,000 workers at the nation’s largest healthcare nonprofit organization, Kaiser Permanente, went on strike Wednesday at hospitals and medical offices across five states, after negotiations failed to resolve a dispute over staffing. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions says the work stoppage is the largest strike of healthcare workers in U.S. history.  The union coalition said that the three-day strike is a protest against Kaiser executives’ “bad faith bargaining.”

Kaiser serves nearly 13 million patients and operates 39 hospitals and more than 600 medical offices across eight states and the District of Columbia. Hospitals and medical offices in California, Colorado, Oregon, Virginia, the District of Columbia and Washington are affected by the striking workers, which include vocational nurses, emergency department technicians, radiology technicians, X-ray technicians, respiratory therapists, medical assistants, pharmacists and hundreds of other positions. Kaiser said it has contingency plans to ensure patients continue to receive care during a strike, and all hospitals and emergency departments will remain open.

Negotiations between Kaiser executives and workers are ongoing, with the unions representing Kaiser workers say they are demanding a resolution to the extreme staffing shortage, in addition to better pay and benefits. Caroline Lucas, executive director of the Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, said the staffing crisis has led to unsafe working conditions and deteriorating care for patients: “We continue to have front-line health-care workers who are burnt out and stretched to the max and leaving the industry. We have folks getting injured on the job because they’re trying to do too much and see too many people and work too quickly. It’s not a sustainable situation.”

Kaiser Permanente acknowledged the staffing shortages, saying in a statement on Monday that more than 5 million people have left their healthcare jobs due to burnout. Hospitals struggle to retain staff because workers tend to leave the low pay and the high stress of the health-care field when unemployment is low, and the toll from the Covid-19 pandemic has compounded the staffing shortage, with many workers leaving the field because they felt not enough was done to protect them from both the virus and antagonism from some members of the community.

Editorial credit: Felipe Sanchez / Shutterstock.com

The Biden administration announced a new round of student loan forgiveness, approving $9 billion in debt relief for 125,000 borrowers benefiting from three existing federal relief programs. The President said on Wednesday he pledges to continue to look for ways to deliver debt relief to borrowers despite opposition from Republican conservatives.

The new relief targets segments of the population, including $2.8 billion that will go to 51,000 borrowers who have made loan payments for at least 20 years. Said Biden during a briefing at the White House: “My administration will continue to use every tool at our disposal to help ease the burden of student debt so more Americans can be free to achieve their dreams. It’s good for our economy, it’s good for our country, and it’s going to change their lives.”

The debt cancellation announced Wednesday comes as millions of people with federal student loans are resuming payments on their debt this month after a three-year pause because of the coronavirus pandemic. Another $5.2 billion is being provided to 53,000 people under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and $1.2 billion in debt will be discharged for 22,000 borrowers with permanent disabilities.

The White House said in a statement: “President Biden has long believed that college should be a ticket to the middle class, not a burden that weighs on families. Today’s announcement builds on all that the Biden-Harris Administration has done to make college more affordable and ensure that student loans aren’t a barrier to opportunity for students and families.”

The latest move comes following a Supreme Court decision in June that took tens of thousands of dollars in debt relief off the table. That plan would have forgiven up to $20,000 in individual loan debt for every borrower, but it was rejected after Republican states sued in the nation’s highest court, claiming the move would leave taxpayers responsible to come up with the money. After the high court rejected Biden’s original loan forgiveness program, he vowed to pursue an alternative path to debt relief through the Higher Education Act.

Editorial credit: Consolidated News Photos / Shutterstock.com