MNA says vote 'Yes' on Question 5
Campaign underway to mobilize support

On Nov. 7, voters in Massachusetts can make a real difference in improving health care access and quality. Nurses, the most trusted group in health care, can bring to Massachusetts' voters the information they need to make the right choice, to vote ‘"yes"' on Question 5.

At it's July meeting, the MNA Board of Directors voted unanimously to support Question 5. MNA's Cabinet for Labor Relations resolved at its August meeting to offer its material and political support to this initiative and to encourage our membership to support this binding ballot initiative to:

• create a statewide system of universal health care by July 1, 2002,
• to impose a moratorium of further conversion of not-for-profit health facilities to for-profit status until the universal system is in place,
• create a stronger bill of rights for patients and providers in HMOs.

Well over 100,000 people from 99 percnent of the commonwealth's 351 cities and towns signed the petition last fall or this spring to get this initiative before the voters. Secretary of State William Galvin has certified this question for the ballot, and work is under way, with MNA's full involvement, to win the support of the electorate. MNA members Anne Eldridge and Sandy Eaton represented MNA as leaders of a new coalition of health care advocacy groups who will work towards educating the public to vote yes on this question. The new coalition, which is called, "Vote For Health, Yes on Five," is comprised of the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the Mass. League of Women Voters, the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care, the Mass. Association of Social Workers and the Consortium for Psychotherapy and Advocates for Quality Care.

The complete text of the ballot question can be found on the MNA web site. Click here to view the bylaws. Included in this Mass Nurse is a bumper sticker you can place on your car or another visible spot to begin the process of educating the public about nurses' position on this issue. It reads, "Nurses Say Vote Yes on 5." You can order additional bumper stickers by calling the MNA at 800.882.2056 x728, or by e-mailing pkleingardner@mnarn.org

Talking points, leaflets and radio ads are being developed. Target dates for full mobilization to reach out into the community and make good use of nurses' perspectives will be set. This campaign needs the voice of every nurse across the commonwealth to be heard!

MNA's web page, the Massachusetts Nurse and the Advocate will all include the information needed to support nurses in working effectively with our allies to carry this momentum forward to victory in November and exert pressure to implement the will of the people.