Taking issue with the $57 million deceptive advertising campaign by the state’s biggest insurance giants, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United has begun a broad radio campaign to inform voters that “real nurses” support Proposition 45 to rein in excessive insurance increases that put patients at risk.

The new radio ad, running widely in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Diego, Sacramento, and Central Valley markets, features CNA co-president Deborah Burger noting that “real nurses help patients providing hands on care for you. That’s why real nurses say yes, yes, yes on Prop. 45.”

Listen to the ad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ-0egAZLZg

Kaiser Permanente and Wellpoint Anthem alone have each contributed $18.7 million to defeat Prop. 45 which would prohibit excessive rates from being charged and gives the insurance commissioner the power to veto rate hikes that are unreasonable - authority that does not exist today.  

A centerpiece of the campaign against 45 is the misleading use of a minuscule group of nurses with close ties to the hospital industry and other health industry sources to create the false impression that nurses actually oppose cracking down on insurance industry pricing abuses.

“Real nurses fight for your needs. Real nurses won’t fool you by reading lines fed to them by giant insurance companies… who have spent $57 million on deceptive ads pretending that nurses want to help them protect their obscene profits and charge you whatever they want,” says Burger in the ad.

“The endorsement of the California Nurses Association,” Burger concludes in the ad, “means Prop. 45 is good for patients. That’s why this ad is paid for by the California Nurses Association.”

CNA, with more than 85,000 California RN members, is the largest nurses organization in the state and a major sponsor of Prop. 45 along with Consumer Watchdog.