Submitted by arlenegloria on Tue, 09/22/2009 - 17:49

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by Allen Nowakowski                                 

CHICAGO, IL (9/22/09) – When SK Hand Tools Corp. dropped their employees’ health insurance coverage last May – completely, and with no warning – workers took to the picket lines. Friday at 1 pm they will be joined by two groups who understand what the denial of health care means: the “Mad As Hell Doctors” and nurses from the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC).
“Like us, the SK workers are mad as hell – and with good reason,” says Dr. Paul Hochfeld, an emergency room physician from Corvallis, Oregon. Hochfeld leads the group of Mad As Hell Doctors who are crossing the country speaking out for a single-payer system – a system that provides comprehensive health care for all. “How can you have a productive, competitive workforce,” Hochfeld says, “if you don’t keep workers and their families healthy?”
CNA/NNOC, one of the nation’s leading nurses’ organizations and health care unions, is also a major proponent of single-payer health care and of the health-care rights of workers. They’ve brought supplies to the SK picket line and strongly support the workers. “Nurses are patient advocates first and foremost,” says Dennis Kosuth, RN, an emergency room nurse at Stroger Hospital and a member of CNA/NNOC. “We are tired of seeing our patients suffer, not just from their physical condition but from the health-care crisis gripping our nation. The best, most human solution for this is to guarantee health care on the single payer model – with everybody in, nobody out.”
The doctors and nurses will join the picket line this Friday, September 25, at SK’s Chicago site, 3535 W. 47th Street, at 1:00 p.m. They will be available for media interviews.
The following day, Saturday, September 26, the Mad As Hell Doctors will hold a public rally at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The rally kicks off at 11 a.m. at the UIC School of Pharmacy, 833 S. Wood Street. For more information, please visit: MadDocsChicago.com and MadAsHellDoctors.com

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