Jefferson Healthcare Commissioners to consider Vote on Single Payer Bill for Washington State
Exciting news. At todays Jefferson Healthcare Hospital Commissioner meeting, the entire board agreed to discuss and potentially vote on supporting or opposing the Washington Health Security Trust (formerly known as HB 1085/SB 5224), a bill for creating a single payer universal healthcare system in Washington State. This bill is currently under consideration for inclusion in the 2015 legislative session. If the Jefferson Healthcare board votes to support this bill, this action might help convince our 24th Legislative district representatives, Tharinger, Van de Wege, and Hargrove to also support the bill. Reps. Tharinger and Van de Wege sit on the House Health Care and Wellness Committee and Sen. Hargrove sits on the Senate Ways and Means Committee, making all of them highly influential regarding a bill like this.
Stay tuned for more information. Whether our district votes to support or oppose the bill, November 19 may be historic simply for the fact we may be the first public hospital district to even consider the question of supporting Single Payer at the state level at all! The commission meeting is Weds Nov 19 at 3:30pm in the Vic Dirksen Auditorium.
Update Nov 6, 2014: It now appears likely the board will use Nov 19 as an information gathering session regarding the bill for single payer. The actual vote yes or no to support the bill will most likely happen at the following regular meeting, Dec 3, 2014. This will allow the commissioners time to research and consider information from the Nov 19 session. This means if the public wishes to express opinions prior to the vote, the Nov 19 meeting is the place to do it.
More information about the Washington Health Security Trust can be found here: http://www.healthcareforallwa.org/
Update Nov 12, 2014: Below are links to some documents that go over more detail for the Washington Health Security Trust. Please note, the bill is being revised and will have some slight changes when it is considered for the 2015 legislative session. A new bill description and analysis will also be drafted that matches the new and improved version of the bill. The full bill text linked to below is again the version from 2013. Nonetheless, these documents will provide a lot of relevant detailed information about the WHST.