HAMILTON, Mass. — Support is growing among nurses from across the Commonwealth for MassGOP and RNC-endorsed gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue’s “Patients First” healthcare plan. They say the proposal addresses some of the most pressing challenges facing the state’s healthcare system, including access to care, rising costs, workforce shortages, and provider burnout.
To address these issues, Minogue announced the formation of “Nurses for Minogue,” a coalition of nurses from across Massachusetts who will share their perspectives on the challenges facing patients, healthcare workers, and providers.
“Nurses are the backbone of our healthcare system, and we cannot afford to lose them. High energy costs, high taxes, hospital closures, long shifts, and longer commutes are pushing nurses out of Massachusetts and contributing to burnout. We must keep nurses here, ensure they are safe at work, and strengthen regional hospitals so they can care for patients in their own communities. A Patients First mindset also means ensuring access to hospital care and helping GPs who are retiring or leaving Massachusetts,” said Mike Minogue. “We need to take pressure off our ERs so they can focus on emergency care, not serve as mental health access points or primary care for patients who have lost their physicians. We also need to bring more companies to Massachusetts, expanding commercial health coverage and strengthening our healthcare system.”
Drawing on more than 30 years in the medical technology industry and in healthcare, Minogue has developed a plan designed to provide a practical path forward for a healthcare system that many patients and providers believe is no longer meeting their needs.
The Patients First plan focuses on three core areas:
Accessibility
- Increase primary and specialty care capacity through community-based care and outpatient centers.
- Improve access to mental health services by integrating behavioral health into primary care and into the communities.
- Expand crisis stabilization services and improve emergency room capacity.
- Push more medical centers, clinics, and surgery centers into communities that need access to high-risk maternity, stroke, and cardiac care
- Reduce regulatory barriers to encourage healthcare investment in underserved communities.
Affordability
- Launch a “Price Compare MA” tool to improve healthcare price transparency.
- Increase oversight of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and pursue lower prescription drug costs by offering generic alternatives
- Improve insurance transparency and reduce delays caused by restrictions on prior authorization.
- Expand healthcare bundling options for families, entrepreneurs, and small businesses.
Quality Care
- Expand nursing education and loan forgiveness programs for healthcare professionals serving shortage areas.
- Streamline licensing for qualified out-of-state providers.
- Invest in technology that reduces administrative burdens and allows clinicians to spend more time with patients.
- Expand telehealth options to improve continuity of care
Minogue’s Patients First plan is built around a straightforward goal: make healthcare more accessible and affordable while giving doctors, nurses, and other providers the resources they need to deliver high-quality care.
“There are two Massachusetts under Maura Healey: one where you’re minutes from Boston-level care, and one that has suffered hospital closures and a lack of access to healthcare, an impact the current administration has ignored. I spent 17 years as an ER nurse in Nashoba Valley and sat on the Working Group she formed after our hospital closed. Her answer was studies, not care. As nurses, we support efforts to make healthcare more affordable, but Maura Healey has never addressed the root causes of our crisis: unsafe staffing, burnout, excessive workloads, poor retention, and inadequate community resources. You cannot fix healthcare by asking fewer nurses to do more, and you cannot fix a region by studying its hospital’s closure instead of preventing it.
“Mike Minogue’s plan to retain nurses through safe staffing, fair compensation, and a meaningful nursing voice in healthcare policy is the first plan that will make meaningful change in the healthcare system. We cannot afford to lose local healthcare. Our lives literally depend on it.”
-Audra Sprague, RN, 17-year ER nurse, Nashoba Valley Medical Center
“When Governor Maura Healey allowed Nashoba Valley Medical Center to shut its doors, she completely failed our community. Despite flashing red alerts from healthcare workers and fire chiefs, the administration refused to intervene, creating an immediate healthcare desert. Today, families face a terrifying reality: if a loved one suffers a stroke or heart attack, ambulances must bypass our local roads and race to distant hospitals. This crisis has choked emergency response times, strained local EMS providers, and put human lives directly at risk.
“We are facing a systemic emergency, which is why I strongly support Mike Minogue in his mission to make healthcare accessible. Mike recognizes that our system is broken and that local communities are paying the price with their safety. He is fighting to restore quality, affordable care so that life-saving medicine isn’t a luxury reserved only for major Boston hospitals. Massachusetts desperately needs a leader on Beacon Hill who will protect community hospitals, clinics, and rural care, and hold the state government accountable before more lives are lost.”
-Cari-Ann Knight, Formerly of Nashoba Valley Medical Center
“Patients shouldn’t have to choose between getting the care they need and figuring out whether they can afford it. Greater price transparency, better access to primary and behavioral healthcare, and a serious effort to bring down prescription costs would make a meaningful difference for Massachusetts families. I support the Patients First approach because it starts with a simple principle: healthcare should work for the patient, not force the patient to work around the system.”
-Linda Pacheco, Brigham & Women’s Hospital
“As a nurse, I see every day how access to timely, quality healthcare can make a real difference in a patient’s recovery and quality of life. Mike Minogue’s Patients First plan recognizes the challenges patients and healthcare professionals are facing, from access and affordability to workforce shortages and administrative burdens. I appreciate his focus on strengthening the healthcare workforce, expanding access to care, and giving nurses and other providers more time to focus on what matters most: our patients. His Patients First approach puts the needs of patients, and the professionals who care for them, at the center of the conversation.”
-Nicole Miceli, Nurse, Spalding Rehab
“Too much of nursing today is spent navigating paperwork, staffing pressures, and a system that makes it harder to give patients the attention they deserve. Mike Minogue’s Patients First plan takes a practical approach to those challenges by investing in the nursing workforce, expanding training opportunities, and using technology to cut unnecessary administrative work. That means a healthier healthcare system and, most importantly, more time for nurses to do what we were trained to do: care for people.”
-Joan Brennan, Mass General Hospital