Washington state, like the entire nation, is in the midst of a health-care crisis. High unemployment, a stagnant economy and skyrocketing private health insurance costs have led to growing numbers of people without insurance. The hospitals and clinics that form our state’s health-care safety net are on the front lines.
Safety-net providers have a mission to serve everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. These providers bear the weight of our state’s health-care crisis. Recent budget cuts threaten to tear holes in the safety net, jeopardizing care for each and every one of us. Most at risk are tens of thousands of children.
State legislators faced an unprecedented budget crisis last session. Their solution created short-term cuts with severe health and financial consequences. For the first time ever, the state will impose premiums for thousands of children on Medicaid. The medically indigent program that reimbursed hospitals for charity care was slashed. Cuts to the Basic Health Plan — the only affordable insurance program for low-income working families — will result in 72,000 adults losing coverage.
The system can’t be revamped overnight. However, there are short-term fixes that can be accomplished in the coming year with small but important investments from our state. Community health centers, hospitals and the Washington State Parent Teacher’s Association are working to educate legislators, the governor and voters about immediate ways to make sure people get the health care they need.
In February, the state plans to charge children monthly premiums for their Medicaid coverage. Children whose families are scraping by on $15,260 to $38,150 a year (for a family of three) will have to pay for their health insurance. These premiums, in addition to new bureaucratic barriers, are expected to result in more than 50,000 children losing health coverage.
Our state’s congressional delegation, including both senators and Rep. Rick Larsen, recently fought for and secured $22 million in federal State Children’s Health Insurance Program funding for Washington. This money is intended specifically for children’s health and could be used to eliminate the Medicaid premiums for low-income children, thereby preserving health coverage for tens of thousands of children in our state — more than 2,000 of them from Snohomish County alone.
Unfortunately, Gov. Gary Locke may decide not to use the money for its intended purpose. He might just put the money into reserves. Not only will this harm children, but it will jeopardize our state’s chances of getting millions of dollars of similar funding for children’s health in the future.
Last year the Legislature also eliminated a critical program that helps fund emergency and trauma care for low-income people who cannot pay their hospital bills. To cover the cost of their care, already overburdened emergency rooms will be forced to raise premiums, which ultimately hit the privately insured the hardest. The result will be even more uninsured people, higher costs for taxpayers, and even further instability in our state’s health-care system.
With the passage of new Medicare legislation, $20 million will be allocated to Washington to fund hospital charity care. Again, Gov. Locke and the Legislature have the discretion to use this funding for its intended purpose or to put it into the state’s reserves. We believe these funds should be used to shore up our safety-net hospitals.
One way to keep people out of emergency rooms is to ensure them access to the kinds of cost-effective preventive and primary care that our state’s community health centers provide. But the increase in uninsured patients served by the health centers — as much as a 50 percent jump since the beginning of the year — threatens their continued availability for all of us.
To keep this critical component of the safety net intact, the state must step up with its own dollars. We are proposing that the state spend $15 million of the $550 million currently in reserves to help offset the cost of basic services for the thousands of newly uninsured created by last year’s budget cuts.
The governor is preparing his budget now, and the Legislature’s turn will soon follow. To ensure they spend these dollars wisely, they must hear from people across the state. Call your legislators and the governor at 1-800-562-6000, write or go online. Save Health Care in Washington, a grassroots advocacy organization, has a Web site (www.savehealthcareinwa.org) that provides additional information on these issues and will allow you to take action.
Act today for the health of our state, its children, working families and seniors. You’ll be acting for your own family as well, because we’re all in this crisis together.
Ken Green is chief executive officer of Community Health Center of Snohomish County. Larry Schecter, M.D., is chief medical officer at Providence Everett Medical Center.
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