We stood outside our house and clapped for them every Thursday! Wasn’t that good enough!?

/s

Because that would cost money. Which would

A. Cost the private healthcare company more money.
B. Set a precedent that during a crisis they should be paid more.

Neither of which a business wants.

Capitalism. The people with the money aren’t the people working. They don’t care that much about the people working. The people working haven’t organized enough for their demands to be met. There’s always plenty of scabs willing to lick the boots for a few pennies more.

They should be getting hazard pay every damn day of the year. Directly taxed from the boards ridiculous compensation packages, with a penalty tax for every attempt at evading 😎

Some of them did, but it was called travel nursing.

From what I could see, nurses were pushed to work in hazardous conditions as “heroes” and “essential”. A cohort left because the risk/reward was bad in a situation where supply/demand was low, some then got huge pay bumps to be travel nurses. In short: capital interests exploited nurses willing to work for non-monetary compensation (e.g. clapping, their own sense of compassion, etc). The nurses willing to demand more pay generally got it

Why didn’t I get hazard pay either?

Calling people heros is equivalent to a pizza party. Union power has waned to the point that comically evil business decisions will be made more and more until unions reestablish themselves. This was cartoonish, but will look like nothing by the standards of where we’re going.

If you’re in the US it’s because the healthcare system is broken. Every time a small change is made to reduce costs or improve service, capitalism figures out a way to keep funneling the same amount or more uphill at the expense of the workers and the patients.

It would cost money. Better for you to be patriotic towards your health care system superiors.