April 17, 2009 in News

Health care groups push for sales-tax hike

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OLYMPIA – Groups representing hospitals, nurses, counselors and low-income families are urging state lawmakers to ask voters to approve a 3/10 of 1 percent sales tax hike in House Bill 2377.

The proposal, from Rep. Eric Pettigrew, would raise just over $1 billion in three years. Much of that money would be steered into health care: mental health services, hospitals, nursing homes, public health programs and the state’s Basic Health Plan, which provides coverage for thousands of low-income folks. To offset the hit to low-income families, it would also send millions of dollars in state tax rebates back to people who qualify for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit.

The plan would only take effect if voters approve it in November.

The crowded hearing room is full of health care providers, officials and lobbyists representing nurses, hospitals, adult day health programs, public health, etc. They all support the plan as a critical lifeline.

A hospital official said that if the bill passes, hospitals will still see a state budget cut of $110 million over the next two years. Without it, that will be $350 million.

Dianse Sosne, with SEIU 1199 NW, said that proposed budget cuts would tear the state’s health safety net apart. That means mothers, babies, and elderly people ending up in emergency rooms, she said, and more mental health patients ending up in jails, prisons, under bridges and on the streets.

“And ultimately those costs will fall on taxpayers,” she said.

Among the few voices opposing the plan: anti-tax initiative promoter Tim Eyman.

Eyman blasted the proposal, saying that legislative budget writers are protecting non-essential state programs while asking voters to approve a billion-dollar tax hike to stave off cuts to people needing health care.

“Have you no shame?” he said.

“You are fooling no one,” he told lawmakers. “…The best thing you can do for the poor and the middle class is to stop taxing them to death.”

Pettigrew and many of the advocates will hold a press conference about the proposal later this morning.

For more on this developing story, please see our state political blog: www.eyeonolympia.com.

Five comments on this story so far. Add yours!

• 

  nslopeofw on April 17 at 4:33 p.m.

  How about they pay for it instead? They can pay it off slowly, but it shouldn’t be free. I don’t see why people believe they deserve free health care. If its such a big deal to the health care providers, maybe they should work for free. If they didn’t charge anything, there would be no bill for the low income to pay in the first place.
  Funny how the people who make money providing these services are the ones that want the rest of us to pay for it.

• 

  kdmas58 on April 17 at 6:32 p.m.

  I’m on the Basic Health Plan and it is not FREE. We pay according to our income, the more we make the more we pay. We still have to pay co-pays and deductibles. It’s not a handout. We’re on this plan out of necessity, not because we enjoy being belittled by people like you. If we were to use insurance offered by my husband’s employer it would take 1/3 of his check. I would gladly pay a little extra tax to be able to stay with this health plan along with all the others who will surely be cut soon. Do you realize that 42,000 people in Washington are slated to be dropped? How are they going to decide who gets cut? Maybe they ought to give you a call, you seem to have all the answers.

• 

  healthcareworker on April 17 at 7:42 p.m.

  I work at Sacred Heart. As a non-profit hospital we must accept every patient that walks through our doors whether we get any payment or not. Since Medicaid has cut their reimbursements to us, we are now facing lay offs even though we still have just as many patients. We, staff, are then being spread much thinner than before. Everyone suffers whether they have the money to pay their bill or not. We have socialized medicine already, unfortunately no one has given the hospitals a way to pay for it.
  Fact: 50% of the people who file for bankrupcy are doing it because of their medical bills. And of those, 75% had health insurance.