Monday, February 12, 2007
In this Washington CAN! e-newsletter, you will find:
- A Busy Week for Health Care Reform
- Gregoire announces goal of universal coverage
- Legislation to end insurance industry discrimination passes House Health Care Committee
- Support for small business passes Senate Health Care Committee
- John Edwards announces plan for universal health care
- Washington CAN! Endorses Health Security Trust
- Washington CAN! in the News
We need bolder
steps from our elected leaders. We don’t have time
wait.
Will you join us in Olympia to lobby your lawmakers on secure health care for all?
Washington CAN! is hosting lobby days on Wednesday, Feb 21 and Tuesday,
Feb 27. Visit http://action.washingtoncan.org to
register.
Can’t go to Olympia? Click here to email your legislators today!
Last Thursday, the House Health Care Committee passed HB
1569 – legislation to stop insurance companies from cherry picking the
wealthy and healthy for quality, affordable coverage by creating a common
health care purchasing pool. Through the
pool, individuals, small businesses, and the state would contribute to the cost
of coverage and insurance companies would be prohibited from discriminating
based on age, health status or pre-existing condition. The bill now heads to the House
Appropriations Committee for consideration.
Will you help us end insurance industry discrimination? Click here to register for a lobby day & email your legislators today!
Also on Thursday, a proposal to lower the cost of quality coverage for small business, SB 5658, passed out of the Senate Health Care Committee. By creating a publicly financed pool to cover catastrophic health care expenses, SB 5658 will make health care more affordable for small business without forcing workers to rely on bare-bones, substandard coverage. The next stop for this bill is the Senate Ways & Means Committee.
Do you believe it’s time to make our health care system work for small business? Click here to register for a lobby day & email your legislators today!
On a side note, last week Presidential candidate John
Edwards announced a
proposal for universal health care that New York Times Columnist Paul Krugman is calling “a fine example” for
health care reform. Interestingly,
Edwards’ plan looks much like a national version of what Washington CAN’s Secure Health Care Campaign seeks to achieve in
Washington:
- Insurance
reform to stop the insurance industry from “gam(ing) the system to cover only health people”
- Sliding
scale assistance for low-income families
- Opportunity
for individuals, employers and government to fairly share responsibility
for financing health care.
2008 is sure to be an
exciting year. In the meantime, we can build momentum for health care
reform by passing good legislation in our own State Capitol. Click
here to register for a lobby day & email your legislators today!
2. Washington CAN! Endorses Health Security Trust
Senator Rosa Franklin and Representative Sherry Appleton are
prime sponsors of the legislation (SB 5756 &
HB
1886) to create the “Health Security Trust.” The Washington Health Security Trust would
provide affordable, comprehensive coverage of high quality health care for all
residents of the state, with a unified and cohesive financing system using
fewer health care dollars than we spend now!
Washington CAN! is proud to endorse
this legislation to advance the goal of achieving secure health care for all
Washington residents and lowering administrative costs in the system. We encourage you to call the toll-free
legislative hotline at 1-800-562-6000
and leave a message for your legislators in support of this important,
comprehensive proposal.
3. Washington CAN! in the News
Washington CAN! has been busy
getting our message in the media. Here’s
some recent press coverage featuring our issues, members, and staff. Each offer good opportunities to respond with
letters to the editor.
Sunday’s Olympian provided an in-depth review of
health care proposals being debated in the legislature, including Washington
CAN! supported legislation to
end insurance industry discrimination and a bill
to lower the cost of quality coverage for small business. The story featured a member of the Small Business for Secure
Health Care Coalition, organized by Washington CAN!
At
the New Moon Cafe in downtown Olympia, owner Megan Priefer
testified a year ago in favor of legislation that would have given subsidies to
help cover the cost of insurance.
On
Friday, she said she still can barely afford a high-deductible policy for
herself. But she cannot come up with the extra $200 a month per worker that she
would need to help employees in a small-group plan.
On Friday, the Vancouver Columbian covered a senate hearing on efforts to expand mental health coverage for individuals and small businesses. Not only is Washington CAN! a member of the Washington Coalition for Insurance Parity, our organizers have recruited 100 small business to join the coalition!
The
coalition has more than 110 small-business members, including the Vancouver
Farmers Market and 16 other Vancouver businesses.
Tamera Alkire, owner of an Edmonds piano-moving
company that employs 10 workers, described her shock when her son, who was also
her employee, began experiencing psychotic episodes in 2003. That shock
deepened, she said, when she learned how inadequate her company's mental health
coverage was.
"After
my son's four emergency-room visits and a 20-day hospitalization, we discovered
my company's health plan only covered 12 of those days," she said. And
although her son left the hospital with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder and
instructions to see a psychiatrist four times a month, "our insurance only
covered 12 outpatient visits a year," Alkire
said.
Last Thursday and Friday, the release of a new Washington CAN! report was covered on KUOW local news. The report found that non-profit nursing homes lag behind their for-profit counterparts in care for the poor.
On Wednesday, the Vancouver
Columbian, the Spokesman
Review, and SeaLatino covered the 2007 Northwest Job Gap Study, an
annual study released by Washington CAN! and the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations. The study revealed that as few as 23 percent
of job openings in Washington pay a living wage for a family. Washington CAN! Organizing Director, Joshua
Welter, had this to say:
"With
so many people unable to find living wage work, you find more and more people
making tough tradeoffs. 'Do I pay for healthcare or pay the heating bill? 'Do I
pay for childcare or put gas in the car?'"
On Tuesday, The
Olympian reported on Washington CAN’s campaign to
ensure that the millions of dollars in savings that non-profit hospitals enjoy
from tax-free bond financing are used to lower the cost of health care for
patients.
"I
think there must be some way that these organizations can report back and be
accountable for passing those savings on," Kent Davis of Olympia told
members of the House health care committee.
This week’s Real Change highlights community organizing efforts to save King County Public Health Clinics from closure. The story features Washington CAN! activist and public health clinic patient, Dave Gallaher.
For
20 years, Gallaher worked at the Boeing plant in
Everett, making all kinds of tubing for airplanes — tubes for fuel, for
hydraulic fluid, even oxygen. He had already undergone three surgeries for a
back injury when, one day, he bent over at the shop and that was it: He
couldn’t stand up again.
…he
ended up going to the county-run North Public Health Center in Northgate, where
he gets primary care from one doctor who knows the history of his spinal
problem.
At
public clinics, “No one is refused services,” he says — at least for now. But
the days of county clinics providing primary care to people like Gallaher appear to be numbered.
A January
30th Seattle Times article discussing limitations in state coverage
for dental care for the poor featured Washington CAN! member
Leslie Storer.
When
Storer, a former special-education teacher, had three
decayed molars, root canals likely would have saved them. But Medicaid quit
paying for such procedures for adults after budget cuts in 2003.
So
for Storer, who survived polio and lives
on $625 a month in disability payments, the only alternative was to have
the teeth extracted.
"I cried," said Storer, 61. "I had a vision of these old ladies with toothless mouths."
With
over 30,000 members across the state, Washington CAN! is the
state’s largest grassroots community organization. Washington CAN! fights
for progressive social change at the local, state, and national levels, with a
focus on issues that most directly affect the lives of Washington residents.
Our mission is to achieve economic fairness in order to establish a democratic
society characterized by racial and social justice, with respect for diversity,
and a decent quality of life for those who reside in Washington State. www.WashingtonCAN.org
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