Sanders stance on healthcare, education, and jobs is prescription for change in state with one of highest number of uninsured

SARASOTA- Nurses aboard National Nurses United’s #BernieBus have been connecting with voters up and down the Sunshine State over the last two weeks, about why they support Bernie Sanders in a wide variety of settings and locations from hospitals, college campuses, and farmers markets to the annual Rough Rider Parade where the bus was one of the many floats.

The nurses are using the bus to maximize voter turnout for Sanders throughout Sarasota neighborhoods, in the countdown to Tuesday’s primary. Monday they lent a hand to local supporters in two commuters honk and wave actions in busy intersection.

“People throughout Florida have been excited to see the nurses for Bernie bus. They come up to us and want to know more, or many times, they’re already supporters—and they give us their reasons for supporting Bernie while we share ours,” said RN Deborah Burger an NNU Co- President, who has been traveling on the bus for the last two weeks. “Now its time to do all we can to turn the excitement and enthusiasm we have experienced throughout the state for Bernie to actual votes"

One of the top reasons nurses support Sanders’ candidacy is his unequivocal demand to expand Medicare to provide healthcare to all residents as a basic human right, not a for-profit enterprise. Florida, with 948,000 uninsured adults, ranks among states with the country’s highest numbers of uninsured, and almost one-third skipped care due to costs despite passage of the Affordable Care Act. The state’s governor, former hospital corporate executive Rick Scott, has refused to implement the Medicaid expansion provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

Nurses have been touring the country, and particularly swing states, since January in their #BernieBus, using it as a mobile voter education vehicle. To date they have traveled through Iowa, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Colorado, Michigan, Ohio Illinois, and Missouri.

"From Nevada to New Hampshire, from Colorado to South Carolina, nurses have talked to voters and been reminded of the huge gaps in access to health care and education, concerns about retirement security, the jobs lost due to unfair trade deals, widespread inequality, and the escalating climate crisis that continue to plague so many communities and families,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, Executive Director of NNU.

Contact Liz Jacobs, RN, 510-435-7674, for specific times and places to connect with bus on Election Day.

National Nurses United, with over 185,000 members in all 50 states, is the largest organization of registered nurses in the U.S. and the first union to endorse Sanders, in August last year. Since then, NNU members have been organizing house parties, rallies and phone banks, and mobilizing door- to-door get-out-the-vote efforts in support of Sanders.