Just pay the damn Nurses

[ElitePlebeian]

So your joking right? Is she admin cause that what an admin would say? Or is it like an light CVICU that ships its sick patient out to a tertiary care center?  Nurses are vastly underpaid particularly in "Right to work" states that all but ban unions 

Also mind you that in the NYC strike the hospital system that is all but claiming poverty made $600 MILLION in 2024, and its CEO made over $25 MILLION in the same year. Not to mention almost 30+ people in the org making over 1 million and some of those are as high as 6. They also spent lavishly on executive travel and nearly 100 MILLION on traveling nurses (you drop that much on travel nurses and you have a place nurses do not want to work regularly)Don't take my word on it either this info. It comes from the IRS 990 they have to file as a "Non Profit" 

https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofi...06204/full

But hey many in those states don't have the courage to stand up for themselves supply the scabs that come in during the strikes.  

Yes I am an RN for over 3 decades PICU/CVICU and Peds CCT

No wonder your healthcare is so ridiculously expensive. Capitalism really failed here.

[IdeomotorPrisoner]

My Wife just got an e mail from a travel company. The kind that hires Nurses to travel to different hospitals because they are short handed and the contract usually lasts about 13 weeks.

This is for a hospital in New York state [ doesn't say which one } and there are several positions open, some of which are in Oncology and my Wife is Oncology certified.

Hang on to your hats folks...They're offering $10,500 for 5 - 12 hour shifts. They will pay for your airfare, hotel and meals for the full 5 days.

The reason they're so desperate....The Nurses are going on strike and they want people to come in and cover while they're out.

My Wife sent them a polite reply and I quote :

" Kiss my ass. I'm not crossing a picket line. Just pay the damn Nurses"

You're wife sounds awesome and completely respectable for her principles,  but... I have never got the opportunity to oppose a comment at DI from the laissez faire Ayn Rand angle before, so I am taking it...

Can i support her personal will without supporting her solidarity with greedy marxist unions that want absurd 25% raises that further destroy productivity and taint the competitive capitalist marketplace with overvalued, sometimes totally unrealistic, unionized contract costs - which siphon money from public funds? 

Our lovely city-contracted union workers have had a single block closed since 2022 to do an urban park with a rec center.  It consists of one two floor building and a freaking park with trees and lighting.

Currently, The rec center is almost done, but the rest is still dirt, bare light posts, and it takes 11 of them to install one tree a week...  it's like a lightbulb joke.  Two of them to actually install the planter and 7 more to watch them install the planter, and two more to supervise them, but only after standing around for 4 hours first. 

The completion date has been pushed back 5 times.

Just build the damn park! 

But yeah, go unions, you commies! How progressive!

Far too late to get rid of them anyway...

[andy06shake]

My Wife just got an e mail from a travel company. The kind that hires Nurses to travel to different hospitals because they are short handed and the contract usually lasts about 13 weeks.

This is for a hospital in New York state [ doesn't say which one } and there are several positions open, some of which are in Oncology and my Wife is Oncology certified.

Hang on to your hats folks...They're offering $10,500 for 5 - 12 hour shifts. They will pay for your airfare, hotel and meals for the full 5 days.

The reason they're so desperate....The Nurses are going on strike and they want people to come in and cover while they're out.

My Wife sent them a polite reply and I quote :

" Kiss my ass. I'm not crossing a picket line. Just pay the damn Nurses"

Over here, they would be called "Scabs."

Cap doffed to your Mrs for telling them where to go. 

[UltraBudgie]

No wonder your healthcare is so ridiculously expensive. Capitalism really failed here.

Cartelism, more like. Always thus, when you have a product that people "must have", to the point where it is considered a "right", and the government gets involved to create a necessity of uncompetitive aggregation.

And what is scary is that you have made the point without even mentioning the symmetric layers of insurance-driven coding, billing, and management bureaucracy.

[fiveandtwo]

A few nurses have been in the news in the past few days, Lexi Lawler (Baptist Health-Boca Raton, FL) Melinda Cook (VA Commonwealth University Health Services) and Freya Ebbesen,( MN Birth Center) 

Hopefully they are not the new norm, if so I think more people will start using Telehealth when possible to avoid medical personnel or hospital visit in person.  Yikes!

[ElitePlebeian]

Cartelism, more like. Always thus, when you have a product that people "must have", to the point where it is considered a "right", and the government gets involved to create a necessity of uncompetitive aggregation.

And what is scary is that you have made the point without even mentioning the symmetric layers of insurance-driven coding, billing, and management bureaucracy.

And cartelism isnt the result of a completely unchecked market in this case?

[UltraBudgie]

And cartelism isnt the result of a completely unchecked market in this case?

It depends on what you mean by "unchecked", I suppose. Unchecked in terms of price or practice? There's both of those, really. Less so price, as far as services go. But "unchecked", when such a thing is positive, implies minimizing barriers to competition, thus allowing market-driven optimization. However it's virtually impossible to enter the healthcare market unless you're a billion dollar company, or willing as a service provider to become almost completely beholden to them. This is due to many things such as regulatory compliance and mandatory bureaucracy, enforced by government dictate that the big players have helped craft. "Checking" via quality standards, in and of themselves are positive, of course, but the way they've been leveraged in a late-stage capitalistic environment of corporate+governmental "partnership" is absolute poison, in my opinion. More of it will not help. Nor will the converse, it seems.

[rickymouse]

They are asking for $200K salaries, I heard.

I am going to go search and see if this is wrong and I will edit this post if it is.

Edit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/nyreg...aises.html

Yeah, they want more money. It seems like a lot. I'm not saying they don't deserve it.

Most doctors here who work directly for the local hospital don't make over two hundred fifty grand a year.  But they also don't have to pay liability insurances because the hispital pays them.  Also, no office costs or help costs, so two fifty grand is not bad.  I guess they start out at like one seventy five for GPS but it does go up quickly.  

An RN shouldn't be making two hundred grand a year, that is nuts,

[UltraBudgie]

An RN shouldn't be making two hundred grand a year, that is nuts,

Depends on location, doesn't it? Cost of living in NYC makes the poverty line at about $80K...