| MNA Signs On to Statewide Ballot Initiative
To Improve Access, Stop For-Profit Health Care And Mandate
Patients Bill of Rights
In August, MNA President Karen Daley was among
the first ten signers to a statewide ballot initiative petition
developed by the Committee to Defend and Improve Health Care.
The MNA joined a number of other influential organizations
and individuals who have united to launch a statewide petition
drive to place a question on the year 2000 election ballot
that would mandate the legislature to "protect the rights
of patients and to promote access to quality health care for
all residents of the Commonwealth." See box on this page for
key provisions of the ballot measure.
The measure, to be voted on in November 2000,
would:
- Require that all residents of the Commonwealth
have health care coverage by July 1, 2002
- Impose a moratorium on further conversions
of not-for-profit hospitals, HMOs and insurers to for-profit
status.
Implement, by January 1, 2001, a comprehensive
and specific Patients' Bill of Rights.
The MNA, as part of its Statewide Campaign
for Safe Care, is a founding member of the Ad Hoc Committee
to Defend Health Care, a coalition of health care professionals
and concerned citizens, dedicated to halting the corporatization
of health care and to fostering a broad public dialogue to
achieve an affordable health care system of high quality and
universal accessibility.
The ballot initiative document was drafted
with input from a number of MNA members including Board members
Sandy Eaton and Kathy Sperrazza, along with Michael Malone
of the Congress on Nursing Practice and Ann Eldridge of the
Congress on Health Policy and Legislation.
Under Massachusetts law, the ballot initiative
process begins with the submission of a draft petition to
the State Attorney General, which is the document that MNA
President Daley signed. The Attorney General reviews the petition
to make sure it meets legal standards for such initiatives.
By September 15, 1999, the petition should be finalized and
approved for circulation for signatures by citizens in support
of the initiative.
According to Board member Sandy Eaton, RN,
"Once the petition is approved, we would have between September
15 and November 22, 1999 to collect the 57,0000 signatures
required to place an initiative on the ballot for the year
2000 election cycle."
To obtain more detailed information about
this campaign or call the MNA at 781.821.4625 x725. You may
also call the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care at 617.576.7741
or visit their web site at www.defendhealthcare.org
"The entire medical enterprise exists for
the benefit of patients. This principle, honed over several
millennia, is now being undermined by a system where the central
aim is to maximize profits," said Dr. Bernard Lown, winner
of the 1985 Nobel peace prize and chair of the Committee to
Defend & Improve Health Care. "In this for-profit arrangement,
healing is deprofessionalized, human beings are depersonalized,
and the sick, the old and the disabled are abandoned to their
own resources. Our goal is to forge a humane system that provides
high quality, cost-effective, accessible health care for all
the people of Massachusetts. They deserve no less."
"The ballot initiative offers a pragmatic
and inclusive approach to the problem of health care access,"
Daly told a gathering of print and electronic media at a press
briefing held upon delivery of the petition to the Attorney
General. "The nurses of Massachusetts see firsthand the harm
visited on patients and their families by the for-profit health
care system. We're behind this initiative because it creates
a public mandate for political action and a requirement that
there be health care for all Massachusetts residents."
Lead signers include: Dr. Lown; Daley; John
Kenneth Galbraith; Rashi Fein, member of President John F.
Kennedy's Council of Economic Advisors; Dr. Mitchell Rabkin,
professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, CEO of CareGroup,
Inc., former president of Beth Israel Hospital; and Peggy
Charren, founder of Action for Childrens' Television. For
a complete list of lead signers, please see the attached list
of biographies.
Click here for a
briefing on this proposed Act |
