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Just Healthcare
Wins at Polls

January, 1999 Labor Party Press

MASSACHUSETTS

The Labor Party put its Just Healthcare campaign to the test in November — and we passed. On election day, voters in two Massachusetts state districts overwhelmingly ratified a resolution sponsored by the Labor Party calling for "universal coverage for comprehensive healthcare services" and the elimination of health insurance companies.

Last summer, Labor Party activists in Massachusetts, with the help of New England LP organizer Ed Bruno, decided that they would use Massachusetts’ ballot resolution process to gauge the level of potential support for the Labor Party’s new Just Healthcare campaign. Under that state’s laws, voters can get nonbinding resolutions on a state district ballot by garnering a minimum of 200 signatures of registered voters in the district.

The LP decided to focus on two Boston districts. One includes the racially mixed working class neighborhood of Quincy, and the other the mostly white working class community of West Roxbury. Bruno said collecting the signatures was a relatively easy process; the great majority of residents said they would support the kind of universal healthcare plan the Labor Party is calling for.

And so, the resolutions were certified and put on the the ballot in those districts. Before election day, the Labor Party organized street leafleting and door-to-door campaigning for the resolution in both districts.

When election results came in, the activists learned that voters in the two districts had agreed with the nonbinding resolution by a 71 percent margin. The vote total in the two districts was 14,242 in favor, and 5755 against.

Bruno said the resolution votes demonstrate that, despite efforts to squelch discussion of major healthcare reform, most Americans are ready for it.

The resolution reads:

"Shall the state representative from this District be instructed to initiate and support legislation to create a healthcare system for all the residents of Massachusetts that: provides universal coverage for comprehensive healthcare services that includes the freedom to choose doctors and other healthcare professionals, facilities, and services; eliminates the role of insurance companies in healthcare and creates an insurance trust fund that is publicly administered and fairly funded; and in order to safeguard the availability of quality healthcare, stops the buying, selling, managing and closing down of healthcare facilities by for-profit corporations?"

Bruno notes that the resolution campaigns may have planted seeds of Labor Party activism in the two districts. In both areas, Labor Party members have begun to meet.

• Also: Just Healthcare Resolution

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