“I’m strongly opposed to House Bill 1868 because it would make it more difficult to appropriately staff a hospital. Here at Overlake, we have already 200 vacancies for nurses, and we have done everything we can think of to fill those vacancies in our hospital. We pay some of the highest collectively bargained wages and benefits for our nurses in the state, we paid millions of dollars in bonuses for picking up extra shifts, we’ve hired more recruiters, we’ve doubled our tuition reimbursement and we continue to struggle because the nurses we’d love to hire simply don’t exist.”