April, 29 2020, 12:00am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
press@nationalnursesunited or
Amirah Sequeira, 240-447-0034
Nurses Union Endorses the Medical Supply Transparency and Delivery Act
NNU applauds announcement of legislation to increase national production of personal protective equipment.
WASHINGTON
National Nurses United (NNU), the largest union of registered nurses in the United States, applauds Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer on the announcement of the Medical Supply Transparency and Delivery Act. This new legislation would establish an effective and transparent system for the immediate increase in production and delivery of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other critical medical supplies. The legislation will be introduced in the House by Representatives Katie Porter (D-CA), Jason Crow (D-CO), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and Tim Ryan (D-MI).
"Nurses across the country have been risking their lives to care for patients without the correct personal protective equipment and, as a result, nurses are getting sick, and nurses are dying of COVID-19," said Bonnie Castillo, RN, executive director of NNU. "Our country has failed to protect health care workers on the front lines of this pandemic so far, and we need the federal government to immediately and fully invoke the Defense Production Act in order to increase production of PPE, and to create an efficient and transparent process of distribution. The Medical Supply Transparency and Delivery Act would achieve this goal, and it would save the lives of nurses, health care workers, and our patients."
The proposed legislation would establish an executive officer to oversee the acquisition and logistics for the production and delivery of essential medical supplies during the COVID-19 crisis. This officer would have all authorities available under the Defense Production Act of 1950, and would make recommendations to the president on production orders that should be made to increase national production of PPE and other supplies. The bill also requires national assessments on a weekly basis to determine the supply requirements for critical medical equipment and supplies, and these reports must identify the industry sectors and manufacturers that could expand production of PPE and other medical supplies. The legislation ensures increased transparency in the distribution of supplies and equipment.
"National Nurses United strongly endorses this legislation, and we demand that Congress include this legislation in its next coronavirus response package," said Castillo.
National Nurses United, with close to 185,000 members in every state, is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in US history.
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Sanders Warns Musk's Call for $700 Billion in Cuts Is a 'Prelude' to Social Security Privatization
"Why do you lie so much about Social Security? To get people to lose faith in the system, and then you can give it over to Wall Street," said Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Mar 11, 2025
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders warned late Monday that billionaire Elon Musk's new call for up to $700 billion in cuts to mandatory federal spending is an alarming step in the direction of Social Security privatization, a longstanding—and deeply unpopular—goal of right-wing politicians and corporate-funded think tanks.
Musk, who is spearheading a large-scale assault on federal agencies and workers, told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Monday that "waste and fraud" in "entitlement spending"—a category that includes Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—is "the big one to eliminate," estimating that up to $700 billion could be cut from such programs.
It's not clear where Musk, who has lied repeatedly about Social Security in recent weeks, got the $700 billion figure. As Rolling Stone's Andrew Perez noted, "There is no expert on the planet who thinks there is $700 billion worth of annual fraud in America's safety net programs."
"Musk at one point in the interview cited a Government Accountability Office report which estimated that the government may lose between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud, but that report covered the whole of the federal government—not just those programs," Perez wrote.
A 2024 report from the Social Security Administration's inspector general found that of the $8.6 trillion in Social Security benefits paid out between 2015 and 2022, roughly $71.8 billion was dispensed improperly—0.84% of the total.
"I think this is a prelude not only to cutting benefits, but to privatizing Social Security itself. I think that's in the back of their mind."
Musk also baselessly claimed that mandatory federal spending on programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is a "mechanism by which the Democrats attract and retain illegal immigrants, by essentially paying them to come here and then turning them into voters." (In reality, undocumented immigrants pay taxes that help finance Social Security and Medicare but cannot receive benefits from the programs.)
Sanders (I-Vt.) couldn't hide his disgust when he was asked during a CNN appearance to respond to Musk's remarks.
"Well, he has called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. They have already laid off 2,500 employees of the Social Security Administration," said Sanders. "If you ask me, I think this is a prelude not only to cutting benefits, but to privatizing Social Security itself. I think that's in the back of their mind."
"Why do you lie so much about Social Security? Why do you make it look like it's a broken, dysfunctional system?" Sanders asked. "The reason is to get people to lose faith in the system, and then you can give it over to Wall Street. That's my view."
Musk's latest attack on Social Security, a remarkably efficient program that has never missed a payment, came as his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has effectively taken over the Social Security Administration (SSA) and is pushing for massive cuts to the agency's staff and budget based on egregious lies.
"Appearing to misread a chart, for example, Musk said on social media in February that DOGE had identified payments to 'tens of millions' of deceased Americans—an incorrect assertion repeated by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt," The Washington Postreported last week.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees—a union engaged in a legal fight against the Trump administration's purge of the federal workforce—wrote Monday that Musk's latest comments show that he "doesn't just want to cut the SSA workforce."
"He wants to eliminate Social Security entirely," Kelley added.
Joel Payne, chief communications officer at MoveOn Civic Action, said in a statement Tuesday that "Elon Musk and the Trump-led Republican Party are promising exactly what they have been trying to do for years: gut Social Security."
"Republicans want to illegally fire tens of thousands of workers responsible for making sure American seniors get their Social Security and then let Musk take his chainsaw to our benefits," said Payne. "We won't let them do it. Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Republicans need to keep their hands off our Social Security."
The progressive advocacy group Social Security Works sounded a similarly defiant note.
"Elon Musk is a conman and a criminal, born with an emerald mine instead of a moral compass," the group wrote on social media. "Of course he wants to destroy Social Security, because he can't get his tiny greedy fingers on it any other way. HELL NO!"
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Senators Want to Know Why RFK Jr. Dined With Pharma Execs at Trump's Private Club
"You owe the American public an explanation for why you took part in PhRMA's influence-peddling events with President Trump," wrote Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ron Wyden, and Bernie Sanders.
Mar 11, 2025
A group of progressive U.S. senators on Monday pushed Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, to disclose what he and President Donald Trump discussed with pharmaceutical executives at recent private dinners as the industry pressures the new administration to end Medicare drug price negotiations.
In a letter to Kennedy, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) pointed to Wall Street Journalreporting from last month on the millions of dollars that healthcare industry executives spent to dine with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida ahead of his inauguration.
Kennedy, according to the Journal, "attended several of the dinners, but largely stayed quiet as Trump and others talked."
Warren, Wyden, and Sanders wrote to Kennedy that "the dinners may have served as an opportunity for Big Pharma to gain insider access to both you and President Trump" and asked the HHS chief to reveal information about the meetings with industry executives, including how many there have been since the November election and whether Medicare drug price negotiations or other critical matters were discussed.
"Big Pharma stands to profit immensely from a second Trump administration, especially if they can convince you and President Trump to abandon policies like Medicare drug price negotiations and patent reform that would save Americans hundreds of billions of dollars on lifesaving drugs," the senators wrote. "Indeed, the executives that attended these dinners have called on him to 'pause drug negotiations'—negotiations that are expected to save taxpayers $100 billion by 2032."
"You owe the American public an explanation for why you took part in PhRMA's influence-peddling events with President Trump, what happened at these meetings, and whether they will affect your commitment to ensuring that Americans receive the relief they deserve from high drug prices," the senators added.
RFK Jr. said he'd "clean up corruption" as HHS Secretary. So why'd he have dinner with Big Pharma executives at Mar-a-Lago with Trump? The American people deserve to know what kind of deals might have been made at those "million-dollar" dinners.
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— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) March 10, 2025 at 7:29 PM
The Journal reported that the CEO of Pfizer, which pumped $1 million into Trump's inaugural committee, was among the executives who attended the private Mar-a-Lago dinners. Eli Lilly's chief executive also joined at least one of the dinners.
Though Kennedy, an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist, has vocally criticized Big Pharma and its political influence, the industry did not lobby against his nomination to lead HHS, which oversees the Medicare drug price negotiations that began during the Biden administration.
Last month, the head of the pharmaceutical industry's biggest lobbying group and several pharma CEOs met with Trump as part of a campaign to weaken the price negotiations, which threaten drugmakers' ability to jack up prices at will.
The negotiations have yielded significant results, but Trump's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—an agency within HHS—has signaled it is open to altering the program.
"The Trump administration's statement is far from an embrace of drug price negotiation," Wyden and other senators warned earlier this year, "and appears to be opening the door to changes that could undermine Medicare's ability to get the best price possible on drugs."
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Trump Attacks Public Service Workers With 'Blatantly Illegal' Loan Forgiveness Order
"Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers' perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine," said one critic.
Mar 10, 2025
Criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order intended to limit a program that forgives the federal student loans of borrowers who take public service jobs has grown since he signed it on Friday.
Opponents frame the order as yet another attempt by Trump to quash dissent. The Republican president directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to propose revisions to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program, in coordination with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, to exclude "organizations that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose."
The order targets employers "aiding or abetting" violations of federal immigration law and the administration's definition of illegal discrimination, engaging in a pattern of violating state law such as disorderly conduct and obstruction of highways, "supporting terrorism," and "child abuse, including the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children or the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary states for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents."
Student Defense president Aaron Ament said in a statement that "when PSLF was created by a bipartisan act of Congress and signed into law by [President] George W. Bush, it was a promise from the United States government to its citizens—if you give back to America, America will give back to you."
"In the nearly two decades since, across administrations of both parties, Americans have worked hard and made life decisions under the assumption that the U.S. keeps its word," Ament continued. "Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers' perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine."
Nadine Chabrier, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, similarly highlighted "serious" First Amendment concerns, saying that "by penalizing individuals seeking loan forgiveness for their associations and the expressive conduct of their employers, new rulemakings could infringe on fundamental rights to speech and association."
"The executive order also undermines the very purpose of PSLF, which Congress established to encourage careers in public service across a broad range of fields," she said. "Stripping PSLF eligibility from nonprofit employees based on the nature of their work will deter skilled professionals from pursuing careers that benefit the public good, weaken critical services for underserved populations and hamper efforts to strengthen vulnerable communities."
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten explained that "PSLF is based on the idea that borrowers who make 10 years of repayments, and who often forgo higher wages in the private sector, can avoid a lifelong debt sentence."
The teachers union sued the Trump's first-term education secretary, Betsy DeVos, "and rogue loan servicers for their failure to administer the program—and we won," Weingarten noted. "This latest assault on borrowers' livelihoods is a cruel attempt to finish the demolition job that DeVos started. The goal is to sow chaos and confusion—separately, the PSLF application form has already been taken offline, making it effectively inaccessible."
The Economic Policy Institute pointed out Monday that "since the creation of the PSLF program, more than 1 million borrowers have received student loan forgiveness, largely due to fixes made under the Biden administration."
"More than 2 million individuals currently qualify for the PSLF program, according to the Department of Education," the think tank added. "The executive order could potentially narrow which organizations qualify for the program."
Student Borrower Protection Center executive director Mike Pierce blasted the order as "blatantly illegal and an all-out weaponization of debt intended to silence speech that does not align with President Trump's MAGA agenda."
"It is an attack on working families everywhere and will have a chilling effect on our public service workforce doing the work every day to support our local communities," Pierce warned. "Teachers, nurses, service members, and other public service workers deserve better than to be used as pawns in Donald Trump's radical right-wing political project to destroy civil society. This will raise costs for working people while doing nothing to make America safer or healthier."
In addition to scathing critiques, some groups threatened to challenge the order. Weingarten vowed that "the AFT won't stop fighting, in court and in Congress, until every single public service worker gets the help the law affords them."
Ament declared that "if the Trump administration follows through on this threat, they can plan to see us in court."
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