CA healthcare union tells elected officials to shun hospital chain

California's dominant healthcare union has taken the "extraordinary" step of requesting that elected officials refrain from accepting political contributions from an Ontario-based hospital chain and its chief executive. In a series of recent letters, SEIU California President Laphonza Butler and SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West President Dave Regan call on elected officials to sever ties with Prime Healthcare Services, Inc. and Chief Executive Dr. Prem Reddy. "We are making this extraordinary request because Prime Healthcare is an outlier in healthcare; they are bad for patients, bad for taxpayers, bad for workers and bad for our community," Butler and Regan write in the letter.