Looking to cut through the political spin and find unbiased facts to make the “right” decision on Question One? Nope. Nobody is actually doing this. That’s not how humans work. Your vote is a “political” decision. If you are trying to “cut through the political spin” in order to “get the facts” you are kidding yourself bigtime. Not only would a substantive policy analysis be well beyond the capacity of 99% of voters, it would also just bring you to the side your political biases would have put you on in the first place. In other words, voting is political and voters vote their political loyalties. As long as voters are relatively rational about these loyalties, things work out fine. It’s when voters are “persuaded” to make irrational decisions about their socio-political loyalties that things get messy.
Binary choices in the voting booth are about “us versus them.” Do yourself a favor, skip the self-righteous “non-partisan” posturing and embrace the relevant organizational/ elite cues that make it very easy to identify who “us and them” are to you, and then vote accordingly. I realize that lots of horrible sh#t is said and done by and in the name of politicians, political parties, and “special” interests, but that doesn’t mean that all elite political cues are the Devil’s handiwork by definition!
If you are now thinking, “I’m a unique individual who can think for myself, not a mindless party stooge willing to go along with the mob,” then get over yourself you drama queen! Politics is not about personal expression and in politics your personal interests are shared and represented by organized political actors and interested groups. It’s not about YOU, it’s about US preventing THEM from screwing things up. Research has long shown that straight party line voting correlates with higher, not lower, levels of civic knowledge. Voters taking rational cues from the right places are effectively SMARTER, not dumber, about their interests and about the use of their time. They are not “sheeple.”
So, how should you vote on Question One? If you are more favorably disposed to the perspectives of Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and bedside nurses represented by the Mass Nurse’s Association and if you side more often with labor in labor-management disputes, you are a YES voter. If you are more favorably disposed to the perspectives of Republicans like Charlie Baker, and hospital executives and nurse-managers represented by the Mass Hospital Association and the American Nurses Association, and you side more often with management in labor-management disputes, you are a NO voter. If you see yourself as an advocate for truth, justice and the American way, you are a comic book character. Regardless, don’t stress out about it and remember the wisdom contained in the title of the memoir of Massachusetts’ own Larry O’Brien, whose experience in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations taught him that in American politics there are “no final victories.” [Larry was a Springfield kid like me. His was the first “political” book I ever read.]
This analysis is sure to annoy the crap out of all kinds of folks but I promise you that it will save you quite a bit of time and effort. If you want to pretend that your vote is about the details and objective facts related to the issue so you can seem smart arguing with your Facebook friends, a quick google search will get you to the talking points you need.
The bottom line is that the most salient and persuasive arguments are purely political, which is why both sides in the fight over Question One are spending most of their time and money trying to make voters believe that “nurses” are on their side. How can voters figure out which side deserves to claim that nurses are with them? Easy! Just “follow the money!” One side is funded almost entirely by the unions that represent bedside nurses and one side is funded entirely my hospital/ doctor/ nurse-manager trade groups. You see, the question really does boil down to “which side are you on” not “which side is right.” If you want to take a cue from nurses, you just have to choose which kind of nurse you want to side with, bedside nurses or nurse-managers. If you are dead set on preserving your image as a non or bi-partisan, free thinker, then just keep in mind that when you do your public duty in the privacy of the voting booth, your actual vote itself is secret. In other words, be careful not to confuse your self-image with your self-interest on Election Day.
I thought so! Thank you for this oddly helpful commentary.
I disagree with the previous comment. I found your commentary snarky and cynical. I actually care about the effect that Question 1 will have on patient care. I might be a hospital patient someday and so might you. The outcome of this vote may have real impacts on real people. You sounded really smart and above it all, but everyone gets seriously ill or has a friend or loved one who gets seriously ill, eventually. We deserve better than we have been getting from people like you.
Respectfully, you seem to have missed my point. My advice makes it MORE not less likely that you will vote rationally. You seem to think it wise to attempt a substantive evaluation of the policy debate, something that would require extensive investigaion on your part. Relying on the advocates and opponents to produce campaigns that give you what you would need is naive at best. From my perspective, your approach is about as rational as flipping a coin. It seem like you are the one with too much confidence in your own powers of perception. My approach acknowledges what I dont know.
I see where you’re coming from, but the author’s argument is still kind of relevant to this concern. Bedside nurses (the majority for “yes”) are with their patients day in and day out. They care about their patients and they want them to have the best care. This ballot measure will definitely give them more say over their labor, but it was written first and foremost because bedside nurses genuinely care about patients and want the lowest risks and best health for them. Numerous research studies have shown that patient outcomes improve when nurses have 4 patients or less each; the unionized nurses who wrote the measure are basing it on this research and their own anecdotal lived experience. They’ve been trying to get safe staffing ratios for the past 20 years, and hospital management refuses. That’s the only reason this was brought to the public to vote on in the first place.
Nurse managers and hospitals want to run things efficiently, cut costs and (often) make a profit. This means skimping on things (like safe staffing ratios!) which would make hospital experiences more comfortable and safe for patients. There is no nursing shortage in MA — many nurses are hired part-time and could be extended to full (which hospitals don’t currently do because they don’t want to give them benefits), and there are also a surplus of RNs who are currently forced to go out of state to find jobs. Weight times should not increase because a unit will actually be sufficiently staffed. Hospitals also (for the most part) aren’t lacking in money, and will not close with this measure. They say they’ll have to take away money from free clinics and the ilk, but I doubt they’d do this — it would be a PR nightmare. Instead, they’ll just have to halt renovation projects or not buy another fancy new CT scanner when they already have 3 perfectly functioning semi-new ones.
I mostly agree with this analysis in general, but in this case I’m going to vote “no” even though I like to think I side with labor. I’m turned off by the Vote Yes people accusing all the analysis against them as being a lie. I trust the Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) and the Vote Yes people being like “no, they’re biased and lysing!” makes them sound like low-information, science-denying people so now I don’t trust them.
But my main reason for voting no is that this will cost money, which I would be happy to pay, but I don’t think the rest of the electorate wants to actually cough up the cash to pay for anything. They want more services but not more cost. If the millionaire’s tax was still on the ballot, I’d vote yes on both, but until the electorate grows up and is willing to pay higher taxes for more stuff, I’m going to vote no on more stuff.