More than 1,000 nurses will be joined by union and community allies in a rally outside the White House, Chamber of Commerce and Congress tomorrow to call for a new agenda to heal the nation.

After addresses by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Washington, D.C., Mayor Vincent Gray, the nurses will rally at 10:45 a.m. in Lafayette Square Park in front of the White House. The crowd will then march across the street and picket the Chamber. At 12:15 p.m., they will rally in the Upper Senate Park outside the Capitol.

The nurses, members of National Nurses United (NNU), have put forward “The Main Street Contract for the American People,” a plan destined to stop economic decline and protect American families. The contract calls for jobs at living wages, guaranteed health care for all and equal access to quality education, schools, good housing, protection from hunger, a secure retirement for everyone, a clean and safe environment and a fair and just tax system in which Wall Street and those with the most wealth pay their fair share.

“Every day patients call me to say they are putting off a procedure, like a colonoscopy, because they cannot afford the co-pay,” says NNU Co-President Deborah Burger, RN.

Employers change the terms of health insurance coverage, raising costs to workers, and many do not know it’s happened until they show up in need of care and are shocked and unable to pay.

“People are going without care at a time when stress-related illnesses are up,” says Jean Ross, RN, a NNU co-president. “Mental illness is enormous and largely untreated.”

“Stress-induced illnesses are growing—gut disorders” in people of all ages, even kids,” said NNU Co-President Karen Higgins, RN. It is all stress from economic circumstances.”