August 2003 Inside… Single payer health care: The business community.............2 Executive director’s column: Hospitals still fi ghting ratios ........3 THE NEWSLETTER OF THE MASSACHUSETTS NURSES ASSOCIATION ■ www.massnurses.org ■ VOL. 74 NO. 6 MNA on Beacon Hill: MNA Web site wins accolades from Union Web Services Budget victories...........................4 The Massachusetts Web Steward, a Political Pulse: Web portal from Union Web Services that Rep. Patricia Haddad...................5 provides users with access to union news throughout the state, recently recognized Personal contact can help sway the MNA for its new and improved Web site legislators on safe staffi ng...........5 (www.massnurses.org)and then sweetened the pot by naming it the best union site for Listing of legislators supporting the month of May. The honor came just months after the MNA quality care/safe staffi ng..............6 expanded its public communications depart- ment to include an in-house webmaster, a Labor Relations news..................7 position that has been seamlessly managed by Amy Weston. Since February, Weston has Collective bargaining updates .....7 added and edited dozens of pages and links in an effort to turn the site into the user- MNA Convention: friendly version that members had been Schedule & registration ............8-9 asking for. From its graphical redesign to its expanded job-postings page, the MNA Web Unit 7 Consent to Serve ............10 site has become a resource that members can depend on. Health & safety: Sensitivity to personal fragrances...................10 The redesign According to Weston, navigating through Benefi ts Corner .........................10 the MNA’s site once proved to be a bit of a challenge. “Just from a design perspective, communications department. “So designing are also consistently seen throughout the Web Diversity corner: the front page to look like a news center is site: larger headers help users identify exactly some of the information could be pretty hard Reaching out in Beijing .............11 to fi nd,” she said. “There was always excellent the perfect way to communicate the MNA’s where they are within the site, cleaner mar- breaking information.” gins add to the pages’ overall legibility and information posted on the site, but our links Proposed revisions to weren’t intuitiveso it was hard to fi nd what Also added to the site’s front page is an numerous photos of members create a sense MNA Bylaws.........................12-17 you needed.” As a result, Weston dug right area for a scrolling message that reminds visi- of comfortable familiarity. in and began to redesign the site. tors about important dates and deadlines; an The fi rst area of focus was the site’s front expanded and interactive navigation bar; and Post a job, fi nd a job Proposed revisions to page, which was redesigned to appear more access to a complete photo gallery. Weston With the redesign of its Web site, the NursePLAN Bylaws..............18-20 like a news center. “The very nature of the also carefully and clearly archived older news MNA’s public communications department MNA’s business means that members need stories; made items easier to fi nd by remov- also expanded its pages that focus on career MNA Member Benefi ts ..............21 easy access to timely and evolving informa- ing a considerable amount of “virtual clutter;” developmentincluding a page for posting tion, whether it’s about a bargaining unit’s and added a calendar with activists’ alerts and and reviewing job openings. Continuing Education ...........22-23 negotiation efforts or a legislative initiative,” upcoming events. According to Schildmeier, MNA bargaining said David Schildmeier, director of the public The new look and feel of the front page See Web, Page 4 MNA Convention 2003 RN-to-patient ratios to be implemented in California The Unit 7 Business Meeting at the annual MNA convention will be a After efforts by the hospital industry in Department of Health Services, California tion to present scientifi c data along with California to water down and delay imple- offi cials made critical decisions on some hotly thousands of RN testimonials to make luncheon meeting on Thursday, Oct. mentation of RN-to-patient ratio regulations contested issues regarding implementation of the case for these reductions. 16, starting at 12:30. This year’s for the state’s hospitals, Gov. Gray Davis and the CNA-sponsored law, the fi rst such law in Assurances that hospitals must convention will be held Oct. 15, 16 the state’s Department of Health Services the nation and one that has been a model for adhere to scope of practice laws to & 17 in Worcester. For details and recently rejected the industry’s positions RNs in other statesincluding Massachu- protect patient safety. No RN may be registration information, see Pages and will push ahead with implementation setts. Key decisions in the plan include: assigned, or be responsible for more 8 and 9. of the ratios by January 1, 2004. The Cali- Proposals by the hospital industry to patients than the specifi ed ratios. The fornia Nurses Association (CNA) welcomed erode the ratios in emergency rooms, regulations clarify the respective roles the release of the fi nal regulations and said post-surgical recovery units, and for of RNs and LVNs, make it apparent that it was “a signifi cant step towards improving evening, night, and weekend shifts, RNs and LVNs are not interchangeable, For the latest patient-care conditions in California hospitals were all rejected. State offi cials also and require that additional nurses must developments and protecting patient safety.” rebuffed hospital efforts for further be assigned, as needed, by severity of “A new era is dawning in which all Cali- delays in implementation. patient illness. impacting nurses, fornia families should expect safer standards Phased-in, improved ratios (fewer Hospitals are required to document visit the in California hospitals,” said Kay McVay, RN, patients to nurses) in three hospital staffi ng assignments, including the MNA Web site, president of the 50,000-member CNA which areas. As of 2008, ratios will be lowered licensure of the direct caregiver for sponsored the safe staffi ng law and worked in step down units, typically housing every patient for every unit for every www.massnurses.org for 10 years to enact it. “The fi nish line is patients just transferred from critical shift, and keep the records for one fi nally near. Every patient should be able to or intensive care; telemetry, where yearsteps that will help the state demand and count on receiving the registered patients are on monitors; and other monitor and assure compliance with nursing care they need, when they need it.” specialty care units, such as oncology the law. In the package approved by Davis and the and rehab. CNA was the only organiza- See Ratios, Page 3 Page 2 Massachusetts Nurse August 2003 Nurses’ Guide to Single-Payer Reform A single-payer system: what’s in it for the business community By Alan Dieffenbach injured on the job would already be covered improvement in employee health status can the premiums of those who can paymainly Vermont Citizens Campaign for Health by the single-payer plan, workers compen- be anticipatedwith accompanying improve- employers. In a system in which everyone is Back in 1988, Lee Iacocca, then head of sation premiums would be substantially ment in morale. covered, this would no longer be the case. Chrysler Corp., testifi ed before a congressio- reduced. Greater freedom in deploying workforce: Reduced municipal and state taxes: We nal committee that his company paid more Reduced labor-management strife: Re- Under a single-payer system, employers all pay the health care costs of teachers and for employee health benefi ts than for steel. search indicates that health benefi ts are the would no longer be forced to hire part-time other municipal and state employees through The fi gure at the time was $700 per car, versus key issue in three out of four strikes. Quarrels employees or engage “independent contrac- tax payments. To the extent that single-payer $223 for the same car built in Canada. over health cost burden-sharing are common tors” as a way of reducing fringe benefi t reform reduces overall health care expendi- The situation has only gotten worse for in virtually every employment setting. costs. tures, we can expect our tax bills to shrink. American business in the decade and a half Reduction of health coverage costs for Improved competitiveness vis-à-vis the We need to recognize that while the vast since then. Companies willing to maintain retirees: The obligations that many compa- rest of the world: All other countries in the majority of employers stand to benefi t from their health benefi t commitments to workers nies have undertaken to meet health care costs industrialized world already offer universal single-payer health care reforms, some will have found their costs rising dramatically. of retirees would be considerably lightened or health care programs to their citizens. be asked to shoulder new expenses. This Others have fought morale-sapping battles eliminated altogether under single payer. Elimination of cost shifting: Under cur- group includes mainly small and marginal with unions to get workers to accept more of Improved employee health: Especially in rent arrangements, costs to the health care businesses that currently do no offer health the burden of paying for health care. Some employment settings where health benefi ts system which result from providing uncom- benefi ts to employees. The fi ne-tuning of a large fi rms have elected to self-insure, basi- are not currently being offered, a signifi cant pensated care to the uninsured are shifted to single-payer program will have to take this cally meting employee medical expenses out into account through some kind of sliding of company revenues at considerable admin- scale or subsidy arrangement.