| MNA Celebrates ANA Vote For Single Payer
Five Year Struggle Ends in Victory
By Sandy Eaton, RN
Editor’s Note: Sandy Eaton is a member of the MNA Board of
Directors, a delegate to the ANA House of Delegates, a long-time
advocate for single payer health care reform on the state
and national level.
On June 19th, the 1999 House of
Delegates of the American Nurses Association voted to update
the ANA Vision Statement and incorporate a set of core values,
including, "Health care is a fundamental human right."
Later that morning, the House also voted, by 80.5 %, its approval
of the following recommendations:
1. Endorse the single payer mechanism
as the most desirable option for financing a reformed health
care system.
2. Continue to advocate for other
measures to increase access to quality health care.
(Language in italics was introduced by the
Massachusetts Nurses Association.)
The actual story begins, however, back in
the early nineties, when an informal single-payer caucus developed
among the delegates from a variety of states. Action Reports
to put ANA on record in support of a single-payer system of
reform and finance were projected in 1993 and 1994 by California
and Illinois, respectively. However, a full floor debate on
the issue was averted each year through astute parliamentary
maneuvering by opponents.
Meanwhile, MNA’s official position was maturing.
In the Fall of 1993, a motion to endorse single-payer was
defeated by two votes at the annual business meeting, amidst
arguments against deflecting support from the Clinton ‘managed
competition’ behemoth. With the deepening of the health care
crisis in Massachusetts brought about by ongoing corporatization,
reflected in managed care penetration, merger mania and job
reengineering, and with the demise of the Clinton plan, opinion
switched within the MNA membership. The 1994 business meeting
voted overwhelmingly to endorse the single-payer advisory
question on the ballot in eight state senatorial and state
representative districts.
The Massachusetts delegation led the way at
the 1995 ANA House of Delegates. Our action report expressing
nursing’s preference for single-payer came before the House
for discussion and debate. However, after only three speakers,
a delegate from Oregon moved to call the question, thus ending
debate. When the vote came on our resolution, it passed by
the narrowest of margins. But the first order of business
the next morning was a motion to reconsider, based on the
argument that not enough time was allowed for debate on this
important question. The false argument was raised that ANA’s
political action committee and lobbyists would have their
hands tied by this resolution by being prohibited from endorsing
and working with candidates and politicians who may not support
single-payer. We unsuccessfully argued that MNA and other
state nurses associations in support of single-payer have
not been marginalized, but rather quite engaged and flexible
in the political arena. Again, by the narrowest of margins,
the vote to reconsider passed, and the resulting compromise
resolution merely listed single-payer as among nursing’s preferred
vehicles for financing a reformed system.
When the 1998 ANA House of Delegates voted
overwhelmingly to endorse the five principles of the Call
to Action of the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care, we
felt that the time may be ripe to plan a reintroduction of
single-payer into the national health care discussion in the
nursing community. Our 1998 MNA business meeting voted by
acclamation to bring forward to ANA an action report to this
effect. This we did, and our motion passed, with the proviso
that we would continue to be involved in other related endeavors
as appropriate. Since winning this great victory, our delegation
has received messages of congratulations from such local leaders
as Nobel Prize winner and Ad Hoc Committee To Defend Health
Care founder Bernard Lown, Boston Univeristy School of Public
Health Professor Alan Sager and Judith Shindul-Rothschild,
Ph.D., renowned professor of nursing economics at Boston College
School of Nursing and a national advocate for single payer
health reform. |
