A powerful argument against Question 1 was offered last week in CommonWealth magazine in a jointly signed opinion piece from Paul Hattis and John McDonough.
In the article entitled “Why we’re voting no on Question 1,” Hattis and McDonough first lay out their concerns about cost, access, and quality, as well as their endorsement of the rights of organized labor to advocate for better working conditions.
But, they wrote, “After seeing data advanced by groups on both sides, especially data and analysis from the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, we believe the evidence, the better policy choice, and the more socially just result—especially for lower income households and communities—points to a no vote.”
Both authors are well known in Massachusetts and national health policy circles. McDonough is a former state representative who co-chaired the Joint Committee on Health Care, served as executive director of Health Care For All, playing a key role in the passage of the state’s 2006 health reform law, and was instrumental in Washington in developing and helping to pass the Affordable Care Act. He currently is a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Hattis is public health professor at Tufts University Medical School and a former commissioner of the Health Policy Commission, who has been very involved in the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization’s health care advocacy. (Both writers noted they are not speaking for any health care consumer advocacy organization.)
“In light of the recent Health Policy Commission report, it is ironic that the Massachusetts Nurses Association designated the agency to be the anointed implementer and enforcer of the new system,” Hattis and McDonough write. “We wonder if the nurses association might prefer a redo on that feature. The commission’s ‘job one’ is to watchdog state compliance with the benchmark health spending growth target established in 2012, which Question 1 now threatens to upend more than any initiative since the agency’s creation.”
Read Why we’re voting no on Question 1 here.