In the United States, activism is a necessary aspect of the political system for groups of people who have a need to have their voices heard. As a group of professionals, nurses have a powerful voice, when using it in unison, towards any singular purpose because nurses are the single largest group of health care providers in the United States (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 2015). Furthermore, because nurses are also patient advocates we also have opportunities through political activism to help change health care policies for the patients we treat and for our own benefit as well. Really, it is not enough to simply say that nurses have the opportunity to help shape the future of healthcare in the United States. In fact, it is every nurse’s responsibility to act as the voice of advocacy for every person in the United States because of the unique advantage we have from being an integral and necessary part of the healthcare system. I have learned, through personal insight and the Healthcare Policy and Economics coursework, disregarding politics can have adverse consequences for healthcare outcomes and the profession of nursing.

     When I began my nursing education, I was only aware of nursing politics in a very vague sense and it did not seem like something that I should be concerned with as a student. Luckily, as I have found out recently, there were other nurses out there who had greater vision looking out for current and future nurses. Because of the efforts of past nurse politicians, community-based colleges were given the opportunity to provide nursing education to their students at the baccalaureate level – a privilege that was almost lost if not for nurses being active. The recently dismissed movement to bar further colleges from educating at the B.S.N. level here in Florida would have caused a devastating blow to the current and projected nursing shortage by limiting the number of colleges and forcing more nurses to seek education at the university level. For many nurses, including myself, I think this would have been an impediment to career advancement and impeded the further progress of our profession having more nurses educated at the bachelor level.      

     Overall, I think taking the Healthcare Policy and Economics course made me more aware of how much politics affects healthcare policy. We, nurses, have to remain aware of the political scenery at the local, state, and national level when it comes to our professions, because without people out there making our voices heard, it becomes all too easy for policies to be changed which do not necessarily favor us or our patients. We cannot let other people, who may not know what we really are, make decisions on our behalf without us being there to make our voices heard. Meister Eckhart once said, “The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of any mistake”. Inaction in the political arena is no different and it may have far-reaching consequences to a great number of people. As I continue on with my career, I will keep it in mind to stay abreast of what is going on in healthcare so that my voice doesn’t go unheard and my profession and my patients don’t suffer for my inaction or indifference.
 

Bibliography
American Association of Colleges of Nursing. (2015, October 6). Media Relations. Retrieved from American Association of Colleges of Nursing: Advancing Higher Education in Nursing: http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/fact-sheets/nursing-fact-sheet