Former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont,, left, and RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United. | AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli Head of nurses union 'counting on' Trump for single-payer system

OAKLAND — As Washington grapples with health care policy again, the head of the 185,000-member National Nurses United is turning her attention to a seemingly unlikely advocate for a single-payer system. "The one I’m counting on the most is Trump,” RoseAnn DeMoro said,

DeMoro, who serves as executive director of both the Oakland-based National Nurses United and the California Nurses Association, told POLITICO California on Thursday that she is “disgusted” with Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and believes that the president-elect may actually get action.


“He’s a businessman, he has an international perspective — and his wife comes from a country where they have single payer,’’ said DeMoro, who also is an AFL-CIO national vice president and executive board member. “I think that Donald Trump is not about either party; he’s about something very different. He’s the one who can actually rise above this and do what’s right, and he knows as a businessman, it’s the most cost effective,’’ she said.

And, she noted, Trump already has signaled to GOP party leaders that he’s willing to buck them on issues like ethics and the TransPacific Partnership.

“He’s not like these progressive yo-yos who pop off while people are dying,’’ she said, adding that when it comes to single payer health care, “I hope that he has the courage to enact what’s right.”

DeMoro says she knows her words may outrage Democrats, but she argues the party officials have been ineffective in offering a strong counterpoint to GOP efforts to roll back the Affordable Care Act.

It's one reason she’s working with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and scores of progressive groups for a national event on Jan. 15 in which they’ll make the case across the country for “Medicare for All.”

Her words come a day after Sanders took a starring role on Capitol Hill in reminding the GOP Congress — which has cited Obamacare repeal as its first priority — that Trump promised not to cut Medicare or Social Security.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told POLITICO’s Jake Sherman this week that his party will fight Republicans hard on Obamacare rollback, saying that repeal will "make America sick again."

"Our message is not just on Obamacare. Our message is don’t cut health care," Schumer said. "Medicare. Medicaid. Obamacare."

DeMoro says that while Democrats like Schumer and Pelosi continue to pound Trump, they have abandoned the possibility of a single-payer system as a means of meeting the needs of working class Americans. And that's why, she says, it would be "the greatest embarrassment to both of those parties" if Trump achieved single-payer. “I would love to see that one,'' she said.

“People say he agrees with the last person he listens to,’’ DeMoro said of Trump. On the issue of health care, she said, “I’m hoping I’m the last person he listens to.”

National Nurses United has taken a central role in the health care debate on Capitol Hill, leading a coalition of progressive groups that have delivered a million signatures on petitions to lawmakers urging them to save Social Security and Medicare against threatened GOP cuts and to stand against the privatization of Medicare.

Under DeMoro's leadership, the National Nurses United has become increasingly active on the political front, and was the first major labor union to endorse Sanders in the 2016 election. The union raised more than $4.8 million in donations for a committee that supported his campaign.

In the 2018 governor’s race, the California Nurses Association already has endorsed Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. As mayor of San Francisco in 2007 , Newsom launched Healthy San Francisco, a health care plan available to all city residents regardless of their immigration status, employment status or pre-existing conditions.

Last July, Newsom joined DeMoro in issuing a joint public call to the Democratic Party platform committee to endorse “Medicare for All” in the party platform.

