Dear Friends,

Ensuring all kids have health care

Democrats have made it a priority to ensure that all children in Washington have health care coverage by the year 2010.

On Wednesday the Senate passed one of the most significant pieces of legislation before us this session, and it will help us achieve that goal.

Senate Bill 5093, sponsored by my Spokane colleague Sen. Chris Marr, puts the state on track to cover an additional 38,000 children in the next two years.

Specifically the bill would:

• direct the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) to create a seamless health coverage system for all children younger that 19 with family incomes at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level.

Families with access to employer-sponsored insurance would be directed to enroll in that employer’s coverage when it is cost-effective for the state. To bring more children under this umbrella, DSHS would conduct outreach activities to inform families of the program.

Democrats consider it a moral imperative to cover all children, which will result in not only reduced health care costs but healthier lives.

Outreach through blogging

On Monday, I participated in an event sponsored by the Northwest Progressive Institute designed to help improve networking and media strategies.

I sat on a panel with bloggers Steve Zemke (MajorityRules) Eric dePlace (Sightline Institute) and Geov Parrish (Eat the State) to discuss Senate Democrats’ policy agenda for the session, and to talk about some of the issues that we may not tackle this year but hope to address in the near future, such as tax fairness.

If you haven’t been to the Northwest Progressive Institute’s blog, you should check it out: http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/

Local visitors

Visitors to my office included:

• Nick Beamer, executive director of Aging and Long-Term Care of Eastern Washington, and Marion Moos, long-time Spokane advocate, came to discuss: Washington’s in-home care system, protecting seniors from identity theft and Medicare Part D.
• Spokane County Commissioner Bonnie Mager and I discussed local county issues.
• City of Spokane Mayor Dennis Hession and I talked about city issues.
• City of Spokane Valley Mayor Diana Wilhite and Councilman Rich Munson also wanted to discuss local issues.

Havermale High School pages

Three teens from Havermale served as pages last week: Amber Grentz, Jeremiah Allen and Mary Pierre.

Pages lend a helping hand during the legislative session, helping with administrative tasks – all while learning about the legislative process.

To find out more about becoming a page go to: http://www1.leg.wa.gov/Senate/Administration/PageProgram/

Stay tuned for next week’s update!

Sincerely,

Lisa

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