Vision for a Healthy Society
Nurses envision a society that guarantees a good life for everyone. In today’s world, the billionaire class has rigged the economy and political system against working people. As the rich get richer, our patients and communities face medical and student debt, housing insecurity, inability to retire, decreased life expectancies, and declining prospects for the next generation.
It doesn’t have to be this way. We can build a future that works for everyone — with Medicare for All and more — if we use our collective power to stop billionaires and corporations from taking over our government and hoarding wealth. We call on working people everywhere to unite in solidarity and demand the essential rights and freedoms outlined in our nurses’ Vision for a Healthy Society.
The right to HEALTH
- Everyone should be guaranteed free health care whenever and wherever they need it because health care is a human right, regardless of ability to pay.
- Care should focus on preventing illness and maintaining health, not just treating problems when they arise.
- Health care is not just about physical ailments or conditions, and must cover mental health, dental, vision, hearing, and long-term care.
The right to SAFE AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING
- Housing is a human necessity and basic right; it is a major determinant of a person’s health.
- We should be able to afford to live safely and comfortably in our communities.
- Regulate the profit that corporate landlords and real estate investors make from housing and prevent people from being priced out of their communities.
- Create more public and community housing and maintain affordable rents on existing housing.
The right to a UNIONIZED, LIVING-WAGE JOB
- Workers must be free to organize a union without employer interference and retaliation. Protect the right to organize and actively promote unionization across the economy so working people can take power back from the billionaire class.
- All jobs should be safe and provide living wages that enable workers to support themselves and their families, enjoy ample free time to live a full and rewarding life, and have a dignified retirement.
- Workers must reserve the right to strike as the ultimate tool to remind employers that the economic system does not function without our labor. Replacing or firing workers who exercise their human right to strike should be outlawed.
- Technology should be used to assist workers, not automate industries, deskill workers’ judgment, or destroy jobs. Regulate artificial intelligence to protect workers.
The right to a GOOD EDUCATION
- Invest in teaching our kids well and giving them free opportunities to pursue their studies up through college level.
- Every student deserves a good public education, including vocational or college programs.
- Fund our public schools and teachers, and stop letting private, corporate, and charter schools control education and suck up public dollars.
- Education should not be a privilege reserved for the wealthy. Public schools and universities should be free to ensure students can graduate debt-free.
Freedom from CORPORATE DOMINATION
- Billionaires and corporations should not be allowed to buy elections and suppress the voice of individual voters. It’s time to block corporate influence in elections and make everyone’s vote count.
- The ill-gotten profits of corporate America and billionaires should be redistributed for the benefit of those who produced the wealth, to fund the needs of working people, including affordable housing, guaranteed health care, free public education, and other cornerstones of a healthy society.
- Do not allow megacorporations, including large corporate health systems, Big Tech, and fossil fuel companies, to prioritize their profits over the needs of humankind.
Freedom to MOVE AND THE FREEDOM TO STAY IN THE COMMUNITIES PEOPLE SEE AS HOME
- Build a fair immigration system and economy that: ensures immigrants can work and live in our society with safety, dignity, and respect; provides a pathway to citizenship for those who want it; and welcomes refugees and asylum seekers fleeing war, violence, and displacement.
- We must abolish ICE and end the persecution, unlawful detainment, and deportation of people and eliminate systems and practices that perpetuate and profit off of violence toward immigrant communities.
- We must restore the rights of refugees, many of whom are fleeing wars we have caused or funded, to seek asylum in the United States.
- Our foreign policy should be based not on the needs of billionaire investors, but on the needs of working people. No more invasions, economic blockades and sanctions, wars, and covert actions to make the world safe for US capitalists, which have the effect of driving workers from their homelands to immigrate in search of a decent life.
The right to a HEALTHY PLANET
- Join with the global community to do our part to reverse the climate crisis, stop billionaires from plundering our collective resources, divest from the fossil fuel industry and convert to renewable energy to make sure our kids and future generations still have a planet to call home with healthy foods and clean air and water.
- Focus on healing and winning justice for communities, here in the United States and around the world, that have been hurt the most by corporate polluters and global warming.
- Rein in energy-hungry A.I. infrastructure — cut its carbon emissions, water use, and e-waste to protect our planet.
- Create, invest, and train people for green jobs.
The right to CARE
- We want to create a society where caring for one another is the cultural norm and goal.
- Care work — which has traditionally been done by women as unpaid domestic labor — must be highly valued and respected by our society, including nursing care, childcare, elder care.
- Public programs must meet people’s basic needs and be kept under public control.
Freedom to LIVE SAFELY AND PEACEFULLY
- We must be free to be who we are, and not face discrimination based on racism, gender, sexual orientation, sexism, religion, nationality, or other characteristics.
- The legal system should not exist to unjustly profit off the imprisonment of Black, Brown, indigenous, and low-income, marginalized people.
- We must stop funding the business of war.
- We must regulate guns to prevent the public health epidemic of gun violence and deaths.
Freedom to ENJOY THE BEAUTY OF LIFE
- Life should not be only about struggling and working to survive. We must give people the space, resources, time to experience art and culture.
- People should have leisure time to enjoy their life, family, friends, personal interests and embark on self-development and exploration.
Help us get to a million Vision for a Healthy Society petition signatures!
As we face some of the most consequential elections of our lifetime, adding your name helps build our nurse-led movement to ensure candidates and elected officials are held accountable for protecting public health, not corporate wealth. If you believe society must work for the people, not just the billionaires, sign on today.