10.09.2003

Joint Committee on Health Care Hearing on Senate Bill No. 686 – the Massachusetts Health Care Trust

Testimony provided by:
Julie Pinkham, RN, Executive Director
Massachusetts Nurses Association

Good morning, my name is Julie Pinkham, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Nurses Association and I am here to offer testimony in support of the Massachusetts Health Care Trust Bill.

The MNA represents more than 22,000 registered nurses and health care professionals working in 85 Massachusetts health care facilities including hospitals, VNA's, schools, long-term care facilities, clinics and public health departments. Our members work on the front-lines of the health care system, providing a real understanding of how the system works and, more importantly, given recent developments, how the system fails to work on behalf of patients and communities of the Commonwealth.

From the perspective of nurses who work on the front-lines and spend more time with patients and their families than any other provider group, the Massachusetts health care system has failed: depriving care to those who need services and delivering inadequate to unsafe care to those who do achieve access.

A recent survey of Massachusetts registered nurses by Opinion Dynamics provides a clear picture of nurses' views:

• 55% of RNs believe the overall quality of care has gotten worse in the past 5 years
• 61% of RNs believe the overall quality of care will get even worse in the next 5 years
• 70% of RNs believe it is the responsibility of government to ensure that every citizen has access to health care; and most startling
• 71% of RNs believe the health care system in Massachusetts has real problems and is in need of a major overhaul

Further evidence of the failure of the system is provided by the sheer volume of legislation your committee is asked to consider every year. I hold in my hand a listing of more than 426 bills currently before the legislature and your committee that attempt to fix the myriad problems posed by the current system.

The MNA has long been a supporter of a single payer health care system and as such is a strong supporter of the Massachusetts Health Care Trust Bill. There are three core principles that underpin and have guided our positions on this issue. They are:

1. We believe that universal access to quality health care is a basic human right of every member of our society and that the inability to guarantee that right is evidence of a failure of our society that must be addressed.

2. We believe the health care system in our state is in serious crisis and in need of dramatic and comprehensive reform to secure the right of access to health care for all.

3. We believe the free-market, deregulated and corporatized approach to the delivery of health care in the Commonwealth is an abject failure, and it is the primary cause of the crisis we now face.

We have seen too many patients go without appropriate preventive care, delay treatment and end up crowding overcrowded emergency rooms because they lack health insurance or are under-insured, thereby costing themselves their health, and sometimes their lives, not to mention driving up the cost of treating all patients in the current dysfunctional system. We have watched patients be denied appropriate care, watched patients pushed out of appropriate settings and yes, we have watched patients suffer and die because no one in this system wants to be fully accountable for providing the basic human right of decent health care. We have sat on numerous task forces and committees, attended hundreds of meetings about this crisis where all the parties try to avoid reform and protect their interest while the interest of the sick and the vulnerable continue to be ignored.

In short, from a nurses, perspective, the current multi-payer, market-driven system of health care financing is inefficient, ineffective and unredeemable. In its place we support and endorse a system as envisioned under the Massachusetts Health Care Trust Bill, which would guarantee every Massachusetts resident health care coverage by replacing the current patchwork of public and private health care plans with a uniform and comprehensive health plan.

It is clear to the nurses of Massachusetts that our health care system is broken and in need of a complete and drastic overhaul. Without a commitment to the provision of health care as a socially good and basic human right for all; without a complete revamping of how we finance and administer health care to ensure we provide this right to all of our citizens; and without a system of regulations to ensure that patients receive the attention and care they require to recover from illness and injury, thousands of our citizens will suffer and many will die. The MNA, and the thousands of nurses and health professionals we represent, call upon the legislature to join with us in seeing that we end this crisis and create a health care system that works for the betterment of our society. Failure to embrace comprehensive reform now will only result in a much higher cost in the future, which will include a high and regrettable cost in human suffering, and yes, a much higher financial cost as we continue to implement inefficient and ineffective incremental adjustments to a flawed health care infrastructure. We urge you to act now to pass Senate 686 and create a rationale, accountable and effective system of health for all residents of this Commonwealth!