Cross-posted at GuaranteedHealthcare Blog.

Update As of this morning, 17,000 nurses are volunteering at the SiCKO opening night, and pledging to help us reach our million nurse goal.

Here’s how SiCKO is changing our country:

The healthcare movement finally is a mass, on-the-ground movement Not since the days of Act Up have we actually had a critical mass of healthcare activists on the ground, working for change. Now we do: tens of thousands of activists talking to hundreds of thousands of people. Powerful.

Caregivers finally have a voice. For years, groups such as the American Medical Association purported to be the voice of caregivers. Unfortunately, they have been all too willing to throw patient interests under the bus so they can line their own pockets. Now with the rise of the nurses’ movement, allied with PNHP docs, we finally have healthcare providers taking their patient advocacy to the streets...and the statehouse.

The media finally has to cover the issue of guaranteeing healthcare—and force political leaders to do the same. Take a look at some examples below here.

And now to the SiCKO/Guaranteed Healthcare Update

*The Nation notes the nurse uprising and, like us, wonders what happens after SiCKO.

(In the same issue, Liza Featherstone looks at the movement by nurses for guaranteeing healthcare on the single-payer model, despite those looking to compromise with the insurance industry.}

*Clarence Page at the Chicago Tribune lays out the new conventional wisdom:

America's got a terrific health care system, as long as you don't get sick. That much, at least, seems to be conceded even by lobbyists for the nation's health insurance industry.

*Last night Bill O’Reilly was in the unenviable position of debating a kids’ cancer nurse. The point is—when was the last time O’Reilly did a segment on whether we should move to guaranteed healthcare on the single-payer model? (And ended up kind of having to agree...)

*Coverage like this Washington Post story reminds us about what’s really happening out there:

As for government-funded health insurance, it would be enlightening if those who so reflexively assert that the public has already rejected it would just ask—well—the public. In a May CNN poll, 64 percent said they thought the government should "provide a national health insurance program for all Americans, even if this would require higher taxes."

*Health Insurance companies are running scared.

The natural next question is, what now? How do we extend the impact of SiCKO? At a minimum level, nurses will continue to put pressure on politicians to answer one question: are you with patients—or insurance companies? At the same time, we are on the verge of announcing a strategy to pressure health insurance corporations themselves.

But what else? It’s a movement in development. Your thoughts are needed.