After surviving a harrowing bedside assault that left her with lasting physical and emotional scars, a courageous healthcare union member is refusing to remain silent. Amber DeSouza (left, in photo, above), a conventional delegate for our AFT Connecticut-affiliated Backus Federation of Nurses, is transforming a personal trauma into a powerful demand for employers to implement standardized violence prevention. In a recent blog post for our national union’s Medium blog, she shared her story to help bring about real solutions for “a systems failure:”
Amber DeSouza still remembers how steady she felt that night.
After almost two years in nursing, she had learned to trust her instincts. She had admitted this patient days earlier, watched their condition improve, and noted the small setbacks and adjustments that come with being in the hospital. She was working the night shift now – confident, prepared, doing what nurses do: tracking details, reading people, and staying one step ahead.
Before nursing, DeSouza was a mother. She went back to school after having her boys, now 14 and 11. Nursing was her second career, but it had been shaped long before she ever put on scrubs — back when her youngest brother was 17 and fighting T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma. For months, she watched nurses care for him, and for her family, with a tenderness she never forgot. When he died, the dedication of nurses stayed with her. Years later, those memories pulled her into the profession.
She wanted to be that person for someone else.
A routine moment, and then it wasn’t
At the start of her shift at William W. Backus Hospital in Norwich, nothing felt unusual. The day shift nurse mentioned her patient had grown more agitated – restless, pulling at lines, frustrated about being in bed. A sitter had been placed in the room to keep things safe. During the safety sweep, everything checked out. The patient answered orientation questions correctly and a family member sat quietly nearby.
DeSouza moved on to see her other patients.
Then she heard raised voices from the room next door. The patient was trying to get out of bed. DeSouza stepped back inside, reintroduced herself, asked orientation questions again. The answers were clear. The patient wasn’t confused – just frustrated.
DeSouza asked two patient care techs standing outside the room to help reposition the patient, to make them more comfortable. It was a routine moment, one that nurses navigate every day.
And then it wasn’t. The patient started swinging, and DeSouza reacted instantly. She told the patient care techs to step back, this wasn’t safe – for them or for anyone. She called for help and turned toward the family member, explaining what needed to happen next. She took a step closer to the foot of the bed. The kick came fast. The patient lifted their leg and drove their heel into DeSouza’s chest. The kick landed beneath her left breast and launched her backward. She slammed into the sitter behind her. If the sitter hadn’t been there, DeSouza would have hit the floor.
“I remember seeing stars,” she says. “I couldn’t breathe.”
Everyone in the room froze. DeSouza instinctively wrapped her arms around her ribs, trying to protect herself, trying to pull air into her lungs. Even then, her first thought was the patient — making sure they were safe. But the pain was too much.
She left the room. The charge nurse took over, and DeSouza headed to the emergency room. In the ER, scans revealed a chest wall contusion, a bruised sternum, and a probable rib fracture. She went home believing she would heal. Three months later, she is still healing from nerve pain, spasms between her ribs and pain that radiates through her breast tissue.
Simple things – lifting, bending, twisting – are off limits. She’s back at work, not at the bedside, but on desk duty. It’s a role that feels foreign to someone who became a nurse to be hands-on.
At home, everything has shifted. Her children worry when she leaves for work. She worries about them worrying.
Emotionally, the weight of the incident lingers. The hospital offered five counseling sessions and because she already had a therapist, she continues the counseling. Trauma doesn’t disappear just because your shift ends.
“You leave your family to take care of other people’s families,” DeSouza says. “You never expect to be hurt doing that.”
And yet, she keeps coming back.
She helps new nurses. She answers questions. When she notices warning signs others might miss, she speaks up, because she knows what happens when nurses are left alone in escalating situations.
Since the incident, the hospital has implemented what it calls an “agitation huddle,” meant to be initiated when a patient begins to escalate. In DeSouza’s case, when she contacted her charge nurse and security was called, that response would technically qualify.
What continues to trouble her is what comes before that moment. DeSouza thinks about how hospitals prepare for emergencies – like how sepsis triggers automatic protocols, staffing, and resources. She wonders why violence is treated differently. Why there isn’t a standard in place when agitation builds, when warning signs appear, when a nurse needs backup before something goes wrong.
“We have sepsis bundles,” DeSouza says. “When a patient becomes septic, there are automatic orders and clear pathways. Nurses don’t have to stop and ask.”
With agitation and violence, that standard structure doesn’t exist, she says,. There are no standing protocols embedded in the chart – no pre-ordered support, no automatic escalation, no built-in authority to act early. Nurses are left managing risk in real time, often while caring for multiple patients.
The agitation huddle is one of the improvements DeSouza’s union, the Backus Federation of Nurses, has urged management to make through its workplace violence prevention committee. Union members insisted on union representation on the committee and a genuine effort to address rising violence in the facility. “Getting management to take the problem seriously, invest in prevention, and work with us is hard, but we are making some progress,” she says.
DeSouza views this not only as someone who was injured but also as her unit’s representative for the hospital’s professional governance and a member of the workplace violence committee.
“This isn’t just personal,” she says. “It’s a systems failure – and it’s preventable.”
One of the hardest decisions ever
The incident led to one of the hardest decisions she’s ever made: whether to press charges. When a security guard first asked her, she couldn’t answer. How do you hold a patient accountable – someone you’re trained to protect? She replayed the incident over and over. At first, she couldn’t imagine it. The patient had been under her care. Nurses are trained to understand vulnerability, illness and fear. How do you hold someone accountable when your job is to protect them?
But the details wouldn’t leave her. The patient had been oriented, apologetic and aware. And the security guard offered a comparison she hadn’t considered: when a police officer or EMT is assaulted, circumstances don’t erase accountability. Why should nurses be different?
“If I don’t say anything,” says DeSouza, “it’s the next nurse. The next patient care tech.”
She pressed charges but remains conflicted, still carrying the weight of that decision.
What steadied her was her union. The union leadership guided her through workers’ compensation, medical care, and the maze of expectations that followed. The hospital’s first official email explaining how to access occupational health arrived two weeks after the assault. Two weeks of uncertainty. Two weeks of unanswered questions.
Instead, DeSouza found herself retelling the story again and again – to HR, legal, managers, doctors, insurance. Each retelling reopened the wound.
“There has to be a better way,” she says. “And I say that because if it weren’t for my union, I would have been totally lost in what was expected of me. Through the solidarity of our union, I found the support I needed.”
DeSouza didn’t choose nursing because it was safe or easy. She chose it because she believes in care – deeply, stubbornly, even now. But she also believes compassion should never require silence, and care should never come at the cost of a caregiver’s safety.
She still shows up. But she’s no longer quiet about what needs to change. DeSouza is clear about what needs to change: zero tolerance for violence, standardized support for injured healthcare workers, clear communication, and systems that protect caregivers as fiercely as they protect patients.
“There should be a standard of care for healthcare workers,” she says. “End of story.”
Editor’s note: original post by Adrienne Coles, AFT.
The post Demanding a Workplace “Standard of Care” first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
Union leaders, school officials, and administrators are sounding a collective alarm: state and federal cuts are pushing public education to the brink. Late last month, members of AFT Connecticut affiliates gathered in Hartford for the 2026 CT Education Issues Summit to demand the investment and protections our students and educators deserve.
The January 28 event was co-organized with the Connecticut Education Association (CEA) and advocacy partners in the Connecticut Association Boards of Education (CABE) and the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents (CAPSS). The purpose was to elevate real solutions for a workforce under strain and a looming funding crisis.
“Educators and support personnel are being asked to do more with less at a time when students need more than ever,” said AFT Connecticut Vice President for PreK-12 Leslie Blatteau (left, in collage, above). “Chronic disinvestment and political attacks from Washington have pushed schools to a breaking point. We are demanding that leaders act now to protect our kids and communities.”
The Workforce Crisis
The day opened with a deep dive into the recruitment and retention crisis. Panels featuring PSRP and higher education members highlighted how stagnant compensation and top-down mandates are driving talented professionals out of the classroom.
Don Akew (second from left, above), Meriden Federation of Paraprofessionals member, said, “you have to decide if you’re going to do something you love, like working with kids, because that doesn’t pay the bills. Especially new paras are forced to decide if they’re gonna stick around. I’ve seen many great paras just bow out after a year because they couldn’t figure out how to make things work.”
Jan Perruccio (second from right, above), CSU-AAUP member, added, “once we get people in the profession, give them a seat at the table. Constantly having top-down mandates really begins to erode educators’ feelings that they are important. Sometimes they find themselves doing things in the classroom that don’t make sense for their children.”
Defending the Freedom to Teach
The conversation shifted to the increasing politicization of the classroom. Former U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona shared national insights, followed by a discussion on the importance of maintaining job protections against censorship and “cancel culture.”
“We should always have encouraged more debate, dialogue and dissenting opinion,” said Quinnipiac AAUP member Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox (right, above). “Maybe we shouldn’t have been so quick to ‘cancel’ and dismiss controversial speakers. There has to be a place for figuring out how we can allow controversy to have a space for dialogue.”
The Privatization Threat
A “working lunch” moderated by AFT Connecticut President Jan Hochadel featured national AFT President Randi Weingarten, U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, and author Josh Cowen. The panel focused on the dangers of the federal “One, Big Beautiful Bill Act” and the expansion of tax credits that drain resources from public schools.
Josh Cowen described voucher schemes as a bait-and-switch for families.
“Why I call vouchers education’s version of predatory lending is that it gives parents this false hope that everybody’s gonna go to the Hotchkiss School,” he said. But, in fact, you take the coupon, and there’s no ‘room at the inn’ for you. That’s the most dangerous and insidious part of this.”
The Path Forward
The summit concluded with a unified mandate: lawmakers must prioritize public education investment and safeguard the profession before further damage is done. Our members remain committed to leading this charge in the legislature and in our communities.
Editor’s note: includes contributions by Lesia Day, CEA.
The post Uniting to “Protect Our Kids and Communities” first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
Power at the bargaining table is built in the workplace, at city hall and in the community long before negotiations begin. Our latest quarterly collective bargaining report highlights how one PreK-12 affiliate used year-long organizing and tactical escalation to secure a major victory on the brink of arbitration. Their story offers tangible lessons for labor activists seeking to build the rank-and-file power necessary to make long-term economic gains and worksite improvements.
Leaders of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated New Haven Federation of Teachers launched their campaign with a clear goal: engage members at an unprecedented scale to settle before the statutory arbitration deadline.
“We see opportunities for hands-on learning in everything we do, and this most recent round of negotiations was no exception,” said local union President Leslie Blatteau (front row, third from left, in photo above). “That is why we opened up the process. We started last January, meeting regularly and surveying over 80% of our members to ensure that it’s not just union leadership at the table. The voices, needs and concerns of our members – and our students – were front and center.”
Talks began in September with support from both AFT Connecticut Field Representative Emily Demicco and legal counsel Eric Chester. Despite the union’s proactive approach, district administrators stalled, rejecting reasonable proposals designed to improve both student learning environments and educator working conditions.
By mid-December, after months of district foot-dragging, the negotiating committee declared an impasse. They took the fight to the public, holding a City Hall press conference to demand that elected officials avert mandatory arbitration.
“We must do better – and we can do it together if we act fast,” Ben Scudder (second from left, back row, above) told a crowd of city and district officials, reporters and union members. “There is still a chance for us to negotiate a contract that truly reflects the best interests of our students. New Haven cannot afford to lose hundreds of teachers – like me. But if we don’t negotiate a fair contract, we will. And it will be our students who pay the price.”
The political pressure worked. Days before arbitration was set to begin, the committee and the district reached a tentative three-year agreement.
Key wins in the new contract include:
General Wage Increases: Raises above the state average with annual step movement for all members. Healthcare Savings: A shift to allocation rates that reduce employee costs over the life of the contract. Work-Life Balance: Preserved workday schedules, pre-holiday early dismissals, and protected time for itinerant members and pre-school preparation. Future Protections: A commitment to meet in year two to address class size and enrollment issues.“We also know there is still a lot of work to be done,” said local union Vice President Jenny Graves (front row, second from left, above). “In the richest state in the richest country in the world, our students should receive a world-class education and safe and welcoming schools that are fully staffed. However, we are the unfortunate characters in the tale of two Connecticuts where wealthy communities thrive, and communities like New Haven struggle to make ends meet.”
Union members overwhelmingly ratified the pact earlier this month. The contract, subsequently approved by the Board of Education, takes effect July 1.
Since our October report, five more affiliates have announced collective bargaining wins:
Meriden Federation of Teachers West Hartford Federation of Residential Counselors Meriden Federation of School-Based Registered Nurses North Branford Federation of Teachers Salem Federation of TeachersTwo additional pending and finalized settlements, as well as a grievance case win, will be included in a future update.
The post Mobilizing Early and Often to Force a Fair Contract first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
Our national “Real Solutions for Higher Education” campaign is actively countering attempts to undermine academia by advocating for increased college accessibility. Leaders of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated CSU-AAUP notched a major victory earlier this year by extending free tuition to the state’s four public universities. In a recent interview for AFT’s “American Educator,” Chapter President Louise Williams (left, in collage, above) and Secretary John O’Connor (right) shared how they took action for their students and to “advance the common good:”
AMERICAN EDUCATOR EDITORS: Connecticut currently has a pathway for debt-free community college. How does that work?
LOUISE WILLIAMS: Connecticut’s four state universities and one community college with 12 campuses are part of a single system, the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities, with one board of regents. In 2019, the state legislature passed a bill that created the Mary Ann Handley Award to cover community college tuition and enable students to complete associate’s degrees debt-free. It is a “last-dollar” program that covers the remaining costs of tuition and fees after financial aid is used. Importantly, students are not expected to take out loans as part of their financial aid. There’s also a basic needs grant of up to $1,000 that covers anything from books to childcare for students whose tuition and fees are covered by a Pell Grant.
The program has been successful in the community colleges. Last year, it served more than 13,000 students. Students receiving these funds are 17 percent more likely to persist from fall to spring and 9 percent more likely to graduate than their peers who are not receiving the funds.
JOHN O’CONNOR: This higher education program is important because Connecticut is one of the wealthiest states in the nation, yet it is defined by serious levels of inequality. The progressive movement in Connecticut often points out that there are “two Connecticuts,” where opportunities and outcomes in the state are defined by our zip codes. One’s prospects in East Hartford are very different than those in West Hartford; same in Bridgeport and Westport.
How did you plan to make four-year degrees more accessible?
WILLIAMS: Extending the PACT/Handley Award – now renamed the Finish Line Scholars program – into the state universities was a broad, collective struggle. Our CSU-AAUP colleagues drafted a bill to extend the debt-free program to the four state universities. A version of that bill was folded into the state budget, creating a program in which students who received the PACT/Handley Award for community college will now be eligible for two more years of support at the state universities. We’d like to eventually expand this program to other students, so they can complete all four years at a state university without incurring huge debt.
Union members, students, community allies, union siblings, and legislators all worked in unison to get the win. We found sponsors in the legislature to introduce the bill, lobbied politicians, held a public hearing in the higher education committee, and got about 100 people to testify. Faculty and students continued their advocacy right up to the end of the legislative session. It was a real nail-biting experience – the program was in and out of the budget, changing by the hour. But we never stopped advocating. And we succeeded.
In all honesty, we didn’t think we would win, but we did. We got much further than we expected – and we’ll be back next year to push it further.
O’CONNOR: It is a CSU-AAUP victory for our members, staff, lobbyists, and students, but it is also a victory for all progressive forces in the state. You don’t win something like this without a lot of help. CSU-AAUP is part of two important coalitions that stood with us. Both the Connecticut For All coalition, which is made up of 60 labor, community, and religious groups, and SEBAC (the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition), made up of 15 public sector unions, understood that public higher education is about opportunity and progress, so they lined up behind our bill.
Our campaign benefited from, but also strengthened, the relationship between CSU-AAUP and AFT Connecticut. And the national AFT and the Real Solutions for Higher Education crew forced us to think through key elements of the campaign. The Real Solutions grant we won from the national AFT allowed us to engage student interns to help us demonstrate the importance of this program in a clear, compelling way. It was students who testified in favor of the bill, held a press conference, and pushed the politicians.
WILLIAMS: While our main focus was on expanding opportunities for students, the added funds that the Finish Line Scholars program will bring to our university campuses are also much needed. Since the Great Recession in 2008, funding for public higher education has remained flat, meaning it hasn’t kept up with inflation. This has created a vicious cycle in which tuition goes up and enrollment goes down. We’re hoping that expanding the debt-free program will save our universities from austerity politics at a time when higher education is more important than ever.
Politically, we have a trifecta in Connecticut: a Democratic governor and Democrats controlling both houses of the state legislature. If we cannot fully support debt-free higher education for more residents, our public higher education institutions are in trouble. Connecticut should be a model for all the other states. We want to help our students, but we see this as a much bigger issue about the value of higher education.
O’CONNOR: In the past, there was a pipeline from our community colleges to our state universities. That pipeline has become broken, likely because of permanent austerity causing tuition increases and because of COVID-19. We are hoping to reestablish that pipeline.
WILLIAMS: The AFT’s Real Solutions for Higher Education campaign says it all: it’s about access, affordability, and equity. There are many people in Connecticut who do not have access to higher education – and many of our students face significant challenges. Some are first generation or come from less well-resourced high schools. John mentioned the inequities across Connecticut. Debt-free community college is a good start. Expanding access to bachelor’s degrees by itself will not end those disparities. But it will help.
Why is expanding access particularly important now, as we face democratic backsliding?
O’CONNOR: I believe we can trace today’s democratic backsliding to the causes and consequences of neoliberal policies that have been in effect for more than 40 years. Neoliberalism, in its essence, is about a massive transfer of resources from the bottom and middle to the top – dramatically increasing inequality, narrowing opportunity, and making life difficult for working families. In order for corporate America, and the politicians loyal to corporate America, to engineer such a massive transfer of resources and have their policies virtually unopposed for so long, they had to depoliticize the population and destroy progressive forces. Politicized folks tend to be highly engaged. They follow the news, track what their representatives are doing, build coalitions to make their voices heard, and ensure that others know what is happening at the local, state, and federal levels. Depoliticized folks are often too focused on surviving and do not “interfere” with corporate America’s agenda. Ultimately, that’s what’s driving the far right’s attack on higher education.
A university education helps people develop the ability to dissent and to participate in democratic decision-making in a real, concrete way. For most people who have power, who have wealth, the last thing they are interested in is meaningful democracy. The elite can pay for their children to attend private universities, so they understand that it’s in their interests to starve public universities.
WILLIAMS: Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the private universities lobbied hard against our bill.
O’CONNOR: Not long ago, higher education in the United States was hailed as “the great equalizer.” But today, higher education institutions consolidate the inequality that exists. Connecticut can afford to change course. We have over $4 billion in our rainy-day fund – we just needed lawmakers who were willing to make access to a bachelor’s degree a top priority.
WILLIAMS: The governor has been saying recently that if the federal government starts doing anything to withhold money from Connecticut, he may be willing to get around some of the state’s spending caps to deal with that loss. So far, he’s not willing to get around the spending caps to support higher education. His recent biennial budget is like previous ones that did not provide adequate funding for operations without cuts or tuition increases. He seems to have bought into the notion that people should pay for their own higher education. But when austerity politics result in higher education being so expensive that it’s impossible to afford even for those with a full-time job, that isn’t realistic. Many of my students work full-time, and they simply can’t afford college. Even many of my students from middle-class families have to drop out. Politicians complain that our retention rates aren’t very good, but they overlook the reason that students are being shut out of higher education.
Our bill focused on the neediest students – but our long-term goal is for Connecticut’s state universities to be tuition-free for all four years for everyone who would have to go into debt to afford a bachelor’s degree.
O’CONNOR: To create a vibrant and serious democracy, we’re going to have to re-politicize people – that is, empower them to say no. Making higher education free is an important first step. But we also need to revitalize our unions and social movements. Being organized and in the streets is critical for making our voices heard.
WILLIAMS: It is interesting that a union, CSU-AAUP, is pushing for free tuition. Some people have said to me, “Why are you doing that? That’s not about faculty wages or benefits.” But it is about saving higher education, not just for faculty, but for students and for the nation. So, it’s the union movement that is really pushing for this.
How does higher education bolster democracy?
WILLIAMS: When we think about Connecticut’s neediest students, inner cities like Hartford and New Haven come to mind. But we also have a great deal of rural poverty and isolation. One of the great benefits of our state universities is bringing these students together, along with their wealthier peers. In my classroom, we create a community where people have to talk to one another and discuss their assumptions. They look at the facts and have to think critically.
When students from very diverse backgrounds listen and talk to each other, I see the transformation in them. They come in with certain assumptions, but as they examine evidence, hear others’ perspectives, and think independently, they develop their own ideas. Thankfully, we don’t just have students from different parts of the state. We have a lot of students from different countries, and we have a lot of students from immigrant families. This gives my students many different perspectives to consider.
I taught a course last semester in which we engaged in complex role-playing games about historical events and eras like the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. The big questions were about democracy and opportunity: Who should vote? Why is it important to vote? When do revolutions happen? Why did the French Revolution happen? What is the role of the government in helping the poor? Should we have a minimum wage? Students debated real-world issues, and they viewed issues from all sides.
O’CONNOR: Higher education is one of the few institutions within our society that can provide a critique of that society. That is not something we should censor; it’s something we should celebrate and strengthen.
WILLIAMS: We introduce students to ideas, events, and people they would never know about otherwise. In a course I teach on the British Empire, students learn about political systems and cultures. We engage in an elaborate game on the creation of India and Pakistan as independent states. My students understand what’s going on now between India and Pakistan because they have studied the issues, including the issues of the Hindus as opposed to those of the Muslims. They understand cultural differences. That’s what history is: a storehouse of human experience. I’m not telling them what’s right or wrong, or what they should believe. I’m giving them options. I’m saying, “Here’s one way things were done. Here’s another way things were done. Here are the consequences.”
What are the next steps with the change you have won?
WILLIAMS: We’ve done a great job in winning this, but there is more to do. Given what is happening in our nation right now, all of higher education needs to be defended. Just bringing up the issue and focusing on higher education is really important. But we’ll keep fighting year after year for our students to have the debt-free access they deserve. There is more work to do.
O’CONNOR: We are committed as a union to expanding access to our state universities. So we’re going to continue to fight.
WILLIAMS: I agree with John, and I also draw broader lessons from our fight. I think it’s important for people to know that regardless of what happens, you have to try and you have to push. Whatever injustice you see that you want to address, try. You may get further than you think. But even if you don’t, you’ll still bring an important issue to light.
O’CONNOR: Given the unprecedented moment we’re in, the only way forward is to continue to build stronger connections with one another. Part of that is building stronger unions – unions that are embedded in our communities.
How do we advance the common good? We have to stand up for each other. This brings us back to when the labor movement in the United States was very healthy and could think beyond its own members. When the union movement was robust and strong, when we thought about class and community, when we thought about increasing opportunities for all working people. The way forward at this moment is to think about what labor did very well in the past and do that today.
The post Safeguarding Our Democracy by Empowering the Next Generation first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
The shutdown of the federal government this fall was largely due to the failure of the White House and the majority party in Congress to address a looming healthcare crisis. Before the stalemate ended, Heather Brauth, RN (at podium, in photo, above) demanded action at the U.S. Capitol and in a recently published op-ed. The president of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated Backus Federation of Nurses sounded the alarm for her patients, warning elected officials that prolonged neglect means that “some will die:”
As a surgical nurse at a small hospital in Norwich, I work hard to give my patients the best possible care because that’s what they deserve.
That’s hard enough to do with a health care system that’s as strained as it is now. My fear is that it will become much worse. That’s why I traveled to Washington, D.C., recently to speak at a news conference and hearing with House Democrats.
A health care crisis is just around the corner because of the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, an ugly law enacted by Republicans in Congress and the Trump White House last summer. This partisan law slashed Medicaid and allowed the Affordable Care Act healthcare tax credits to expire for working families — all while funding tax breaks for billionaires.
That’s great if you have money. But it’s going to make life harder and more expensive for everyone else, including more than 100,000 people in Connecticut who will face higher premiums if the tax credits expire.
Already, our small community hospital has had one of the busiest years to date. And with cold and flu season ahead, healthcare workers are gearing up for the worst respiratory virus season we have seen since COVID-19 in 2020.
We have a nursing shortage. It currently takes months to see primary care providers, and forget about getting an appointment with a specialist in under six to 12 months. We have patients sleeping overnight on stretchers in our emergency rooms and waiting on stretchers in hallways for other patients to be discharged.
It’s clear that the cuts coming down the pike have the capacity to dismantle and destabilize our currently understaffed and struggling healthcare system. Hospitals and clinics will close or cut essential services, forcing patients to travel farther and wait longer for care. Up to 15 million people could eventually lose their healthcare coverage, and millions more will see their healthcare premiums increase.
People can’t afford groceries right now. How do we expect them to afford significant rate increases to their health insurance?
And we know that rural communities will face higher premium increases than other communities if the healthcare tax credits are allowed to expire. Nationally, nearly a quarter of farmers and ranchers get healthcare coverage through plans supported by these tax credits. Entire communities will be devastated if the politicians in charge of Congress and the White House don’t take action.
The frontline health care workers are scared. Anyone who is concerned about their own health or a loved one’s health should be as well.
Asking our friends and neighbors who can’t afford food or rent to pay, on average, more than double for their health insurance premiums is going to force people off their health insurance. And that won’t stop people from needing emergency care, regardless of whether they live in a blue or a red community. Communities will suffer. People will get sicker. It’s not at all a stretch to say that some will die.
But instead of working with Democrats to lower health care costs, Republicans shut down the government and took a vacation. Many of our patients are hardworking Americans who are about to receive notice that they are losing the tax credit that allows them to afford health care — and Republicans are OK with that.
Republicans control Congress and the White House. They should return to D.C. and do their jobs. They should end this government shutdown and work with Democrats to rescue the healthcare that’s now at risk. Our patients and communities deserve no less.
Editor’s note: The federal government funding agreement signed into law on November 12 did not resolve the issue of expiring Affordable Care Act (ACA) premium subsidies; photo credit to Nicole Guadiano, AFT.
The post Warning Politicians that Inaction has Consequences first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
