Locke: Do More On Health Plan Governor Says Gop Broke Promise To Add More Needy To State Coverage
Gov. Gary Locke on Tuesday accused the Republican Legislature of breaking a 1995 promise to expand health-insurance coverage for the state’s working poor.
Speaking to a rally on the steps of the Capitol, the Democrat said he will fight hard to persuade lawmakers in the session’s final days to spend more money on the Basic Health Plan.
And the governor hinted that failure to do so could be a reason for a special session following Sunday’s adjournment.
“We’re not going to leave this legislative session until the needs of the people are addressed,” he said.
The 11-year-old Basic Health Plan subsidizes health insurance for about 130,000 enrollees at a cost of nearly $400 million over the two-year budget cycle. The main source of funding comes from taxes on hospitals and tobacco.
In 1995, the Legislature virtually repealed a 1993 health-care overhaul law intended to make insurance more affordable. It did so in the promise that it would expand the BHP to 200,000 enrollees by July of this year.
Instead, the program has enough funding for 130,000 enrollees, with a waiting list of nearly 70,000.
“We need to live up to our promises,” the governor said to cheers from the small crowd of health-care advocates.
Locke wanted to spend about $85 million more to boost enrollment by 20,000 - still short of the 200,000. But House and Senate budget writers said the program’s revenue base couldn’t support it, and it would be imprudent to take money from general taxes to pay the cost.
He noted that in recent days lawmakers have sent him measures to cut millions of dollars in taxes on soda pop makers, coin-operated car washes and other special interests. “But there’s no money to expand the BHP? Who’s kidding whom?” he said.
Special accounts, such as the Health Services Account that funds the BHP, are not subject to spending-limit Initiative 601. The account could be beefed up with excess tax revenue, much of which is being given back to the public in the form of tax cuts, health-care advocates have noted.
“We’re not talking about dollars and cents here. We’re talking about people who are working but who do not have the money to pay for health insurance,” Locke said.
Senate Ways and Means Chairman Jim West, R-Spokane, later said Republicans are “willing to talk to the governor about ways to put more money into the BHP. If he (Locke) has a proposal, we’ll listen to it.”
But West added that the Republicans aren’t willing to beef up the program from general revenues, only to push the problem forward a few years. “There has to be a sustainable revenue base,” he said.
Rally organizers, which included Washington Citizen Action, a group that lobbies for subsidized health care, showed a videotaped interview of Marilyn Wachsman, an Olympia woman hospitalized with cancer after being forced to wait months for health insurance.
“Nobody goes without health insurance because they want to. People go without health insurance because they can’t afford it,” she said on the tape.