A formidable St Augustine activist has passed away at age 86. She leaves a rich legacy that should serve as an inspiration to younger generations to fight for what's right.
Robin never waivered from what she believed was her duty as a citizen: to speak out.
She passed away on Jan. 6th, the day that she would normally open her house for lively political debate among fellow citizens of our community.
QuoteOn January 6th each year, Robin Nadeau held a traditional Twelfth Night party at her home, where activists and politicos mingled, celebrating the last night of the Catholic calendar for Christmas.
Last year the Twelfth Night party was not held because Robin had suffered a stroke. In 2010, I fondly remember Robin at the Twelfth Night Party, resplendent in a red dress she had made decades ago. Robin was seated, just inside her front door, talking with our former Democratic Presidential nominee, Senator George S. McGovern â€" engaged in public spirited discussion about how to improve our country and protect our people.
Truly, Robin Nadeau was both a “force of nature,†and a lover of nature, and a lover of democracy, equality and justice. In the spirit of St. Francis and Catholic Worker movement founder Dorothy Day, she spoke her truths and inspired future generations.
http://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2012/01/robin-nadequ-rest-in-peace.html
Robin was a good friend of mine and understood well what it meant to be a caregiver to a disabled or sick family member, as she had long cared for her ailing husband Bernard.
QuoteRobin Nadeau was nearly 87 years old, and she lived a wonderful life. She lived all over the world with her late husband Bern, who was a Foreign Service Officer and a diplomatic courier. They met on an airliner in Latin America, where Robin was a stewardess, working in the civilian equivalent of a C-47 in the early days of passenger flights. Bern proposed to Robin within 18 hours, because he was afraid they would never meet again.
After Bern’s retirement from the State Department, and after they ran a trailer park in Gainesville, Robin and Bern moved to St. Augustine Beach.
http://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2012/01/robin-nadequ-rest-in-peace.html
As a community let us remember that her activism continued to the very end. She spoke to the St Johns county commissioners as recently as November to advocate their adoption of a resolution in support of a St Augustine National Park and Scenic Seashore. She knew just how important it was to protect our environment. It was there that I last saw her, as always with her most charming smile.
I remember Robin to be such a real lady.
As an immigrant from Canada she never let an opportunity go by without advocating for Medicare for All, knowing first hand how well this system worked in Canada. Her most recent letter to the St. Augustine Record was published just weeks ago:
Nation needs a 'Medicare for all' health care system
Posted: December 13, 2011 - 11:41pm
By Robin Nadeau
St. Augustine Beach
Editor: In response to an editorial from the Northwest Florida Daily News in The Record on Friday, nothing could be further from the truth. America’s privately run, for profit healthcare industry is ranked 37th in the world, according to the World Health Organization, far from being the “best in the world.â€
We have a worse infant mortality rate than impoverished Cuba; And
Americans die from more serious ailments, and die younger than in other advanced nations, even though they spend almost half as much as we do on health care â€" because most of them benefit from a government run, single payer system, very similar to our VA system. To quote my son, a neurologist at University of Florida, who also cares for the veterans in the excellent VA hospital, across the road from Shands: “The VA is the best system in America.†Not only does it cost far less to care for our veterans, but, unlike our regular privately run health insurance system, the VA has brokered a far cheaper rate of payment for pharmaceuticals, so that prescription drugs cost a fraction of the high costs that the rest of us pay. If you were to give veterans a voucher for the cost of their health care, they would have to pay a hefty amount out of their own pockets.
There has been “market competition†among the private health insurance companies for years, and yet their prices keep soaring. Also, our factories that produce goods that we would like to market overseas are unable to compete with the nations with government run healthcare systems, due to the heavy costs of private health insurance for their employees (it costs an average of $2,000 extra per vehicle).
We need a “Medicare for All†system of health care for all Americans. Medicare Administration costs 3 percent, whereas private insurance companies charge an average of 31% to administer their systems, which is required to pay the exorbitant remuneration for their top executives, plus profits for their share holders; added to that, private doctors are obliged to hire experts to sort through the varied billing required by the private insurers, which probably accounts for 59 percent of doctors who would choose a single payer system under Medicare.
http://staugustine.com/opinions/2011-12-13/letter-nation-needs-medicare-all-health-care-system
And earlier in 2011:
Nadeau:
Universal health care system would cut deficitPosted: August 20, 2011 - 11:15pm
By Robin E. Nadeau
St. Augustine Beach
Editor: A single-payer system â€" Medicare for all â€" would cut the deficit.
If Congress were really serious about cutting the deficit, they would institute a "Medicare for All" system of universal health insurance. So-called Obamacare is a big improvement over the existing system, which leaves 56 million American citizens unable to afford health insurance (probably more now, since so many Americans have lost jobs, and the health insurance provided by their former employers). Even Obamacare leaves anywhere from 15-to- 23 million Americans uncovered, including
many who are underinsured, who would be subject to bankruptcy if hit by a major medical incident. As for the plans to cut Social Security and Medicare, Congress has no right to touch that
money that we have paid for out of our FICA taxes on our salaries, that have been spent on general funding (over $2.5 trillion so far) instead of putting it into a Social Security trust fund. They must pay it back, by raising taxes somewhere else -- for instance, wipe out the President G.W. Bush tax cuts on the ultra rich.
The main driving force of the ever-spiralling cost of health insurance is that our system is run by private insurance companies, which use 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care on administration, whereas Medicare spends under 3 percent. Medicare for all would save $400 billion per year -- enough to cover those remaining uninsured.
Instead, we now have the poor, uninsured, resorting to costly emergency-room services, or, not seeking any medical services. It has been estimated that
more than 59,000 deaths per year are due to lack of health care when it is needed. We are almost last in ranking as to longevity, as compared to other developed nations of the world, and we have among the highest rate of infant mortality.
Having the system under one leading agency (a single payer) would allow better control over the system.
To those who would argue that they do not trust government to run our system, would you rather trust a corporation, with the profit motive first and foremost in mind, to tell our doctors how to treat us? In nationwide polls, 87 percent of Americans favor a single-payer system, and 60 percent of doctors favor it. It would save doctors from having to pay for experts to sort through all the disparate billing requirements for the private insurance companies.
However, do not think that a single payer system puts private health insurance companies out of business; they are still profiting in Canada, selling insurance for luxuries, such as private and semi-private hospital rooms.
Our latest trade-deficit gap has widened to the highest to date. Is it any wonder, when our exporters have to add the cost of employee health insurance to the price of their product (estimated at an additional $2,000 per vehicle), while competing with nations with government-run health care systems?
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Robin E. Nadeau lives in St. Augustine Beach and has been a resident of St. Johns County for 33 years. She is a member of the League of Women Voters and is active in protecting the quality of life of county residents.
http://staugustine.com/opinions/2011-08-20/universal-health-care-system-would-cut-deficit
Don't we wish we had more Robin Nadeau's in Leadership positions?!?