round this time last year, Dr. Mitchell T. Rabkin was so eager to support a ballot initiative for universal health care that he was among the first 10 petition signers.
Then why did Rabkin, president-emeritus of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, just film a television ad opposing the very ballot question he helped get off the ground?
''It looks attractive, but calls for a no vote,'' said Rabkin, who fears that the sweeping reforms in Question 5 would drive up the cost of health care in Massachusetts.
Rabkin is among a growing number of Question 5 architects and original supporters who have decided to join the campaign against it:
Health Care For All, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group and once a cheerleader for Question 5, recently published a fact sheet listing reasons why voters should say no.
The Russian Community Association, which gathered 1,000 signatures to help put the initiative on the ballot, is now editorializing against it on the group's cable access channel.
And the Massachusetts Medical Society, while originally neutral on the ballot initiative, has come out in opposition.
Rabkin said yesterday that he has taped a television commercial for the group of HMOs and big businesses that will spend $4 million to defeat the measure. The ad, part of a $3 million TV and radio ad campaign, will air sometime this month.
Rabkin said that a patient bill of rights passed by the Legislature in July already accomplishes much of what's contained in the ballot question.
''What's left in Question 5 are things that could only create mischief, and could increase health care costs so that everybody would be paying more,'' he said, echoing the findings of an analysis released yesterday by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
Health Care For All, which still supports universal health care, argues that the patient bill of rights is more comprehensive than the ballot initiative. And both measures call for commissions to study ways to implement universal health care, the group said, even though the ballot question includes a deadline.
