Cover the Uninsured Week

May 1 - 7, 2006

As advocates for the uninsured move into high gear as part of “Covered the Uninsured” week (May 1-7), it seems fitting to assess how Washington stands up against other states in providing health care to its citizens.

More than 850,000 Washington residents – about 16 percent of people younger than 65 – have no health insurance, according to the U.S. Census. That is better than the nation as a whole: 18 percent, or nearly 46 million Americans, have no coverage and are forced to gamble every day that they won’t get sick or injured.

But being marginally better than average is not where most Washingtonians want to be. We, as a state and a nation, have a long way to go if we want to broaden access to health care.

And that is a worthy goal for at least two reasons.

• If you are uninsured, you live sicker and die sooner than those with health insurance. In addition, the uninsured are just one serious illness or injury away from being wiped out financially. In fact, medical bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy filings.
• Second, we all pay for the uninsured. Why? Because those without health insurance have no option but to use emergency rooms – where they go when they are really sick and where the treatment is more expensive. And because most health care facilities will not turn away patients who are too poor to pay, those costs are transferred to patients and employers who do purchase coverage.

How can we fix the problem?

Washington has been one of the most aggressive states in the nation in trying to address the problem of the uninsured.

• In 1987, the Legislature created the Basic Health Plan. It was the first state-only funded program in the nation to provide subsidized coverage to low-income people.
• The state has also aggressively expanded the Medicaid program, which now provides health services to about 900,000 children and adults.
• Furthermore, during the recently concluded 2006 session, the Legislature took additional steps to incrementally expand existing programs and found innovative ways to expand access to health care.

Examples of those creative efforts are the Small Employer Health Insurance Partnership Program (House Bill 2572) and the Community Health Care Grant Program (Senate Bill 6459). Both of these efforts are premised on the notion that everybody has a role in addressing the problem of the uninsured. Government can’t do it alone. The private sector can’t do it alone. It’s got to be a partnership between government, employers, employees and local communities – all of us working together to solve the health care crisis.

The supplemental budget provides $1.5 million for the Community Health Care Grant Program, which is designed to help local groups, many of which are already up and running in communities such as Spokane, Olympia and Bellingham, to help the uninsured get regular and specialty care. These local groups are great assets, and, with a little additional assistance, they’ll be better able to bring their communities together to find local solutions.

Under the Small Employer Health Insurance Partnership Program, employers with low-income workers will be able to find more affordable coverage. Targeted at employers with 50 or fewer employees, the program provides premium assistance to workers who have incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $17,960 for an individual and $30,520 for a family of three. To be eligible, the employer must pay at least 40 percent of the cost of the health plan. With this approach, employers will be able to find decent coverage for about $90 per month per eligible employee. The program will begin taking applications on July 1, 2007.

We also expanded some of our traditional means of covering low-income families.

• Basic Health Plan (BHP). An additional 6,500 low-income adults will be able to enroll in the BHP, bringing total enrollment in this affordable plan to 106,500.
  
• Children’s Health Insurance. Last session, the Legislature made a commitment to working with the private sector to ensure that all children in Washington have health care coverage by 2010. To stay on target to reach that goal, this year’s supplemental budget provided additional funding so 10,000 more children (than are currently enrolled) can be covered through the Immigrant Children’s Health Program.

So, at the state level, we have been taking on the challenge of the uninsured – one that the federal government has shrunk from. But at all levels, health care is a relentless challenge. How can the state increase access to health care when revenues are not keeping pace with rising costs? How can small businesses afford to provide coverage to their workers?

Finding answers to these big, tough questions will require broader recognition of the breadth of the problem. This week marks a critical step in the march toward covering the uncovered.