Editorial: Health care reform ideas need airing in Olympia
Federal lawmakers love to tout their home states’ successes as a model for nationwide solutions. In the wide-ranging debate over health care reform, for example, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., regularly boasts about Washington state’s record for containing costs.
Back in Olympia, however, a different attitude prevails. Rather than nurture innovation, the House Health Care and Wellness Committee is concentrating on alignment of Washington’s health care system with federal mandates expected to come from Congress.
So said Chairwoman Eileen Cody, D-Seattle, in a letter explaining why a package of ambitious health care reform bills are unlikely to get hearings this session. Not because they’re sponsored by minority Republicans but because the priority is to stand ready for orders, and money, from the other Washington.
That rationale is flawed, especially now that the election in Massachusetts has put an obstacle in the path of federal reform. If federal legislation is enacted at all this year, it probably won’t happen before March 12, when the Washington Legislature adjourns.
Maybe that’s why Cody agreed this week to schedule hearings next week on a few of the Republicans’ bills. Not, however, on the most substantive among them.
Several bills intended to attack cost and availability problems still are not on the hearing schedule. Examples:
•Allowing small businesses to join in affordable cafeteria plans for their employees.
•Permitting coverage plans tailored to people between 19 and 34.
•Letting businesses shop across state lines for group health plans.
Those strategies could be particularly timely if the federal answers Cody awaits are not forthcoming. Upon examination, they may not be ripe for passage. They may need fine-tuning, or they may even be unsalvageable. At the same time, they may prove to be better answers for Washington than Congress is apt to deliver.
We won’t resolve any of those uncertainties unless the measures are studied in committee.