Murray touts health program

With the number of people without health insurance on the rise, U.S. Sen. Patty Murray called on the White House to back a program that steers patients toward help.

Seeking re-election this fall, Murray was in Spokane on Wednesday to tout her work funding the federal Healthy Communities Access Program, or HCAP.

The program helps pay for such endeavors as the Health Improvement Partnership in Eastern Washington.

Dan Baumgarten, executive director of the partnership, said that in the past five years it has helped 48,000 people in Eastern Washington who are without adequate health insurance.

Between 400 and 500 people a month seek help from the organization for their health insurance problems.

“The problems are that people are losing insurance and don’t know where to turn,” Baumgarten said, pointing to confusion surrounding government programs, anxiety about job losses, and the complexities surrounding the entire health-care payment system. “We try to be a resource that takes away some of that uncertainty,” he said.

Murray said the Bush administration has targeted for cuts HCAP funds that support such programs. She said the administration is trying to redirect $20 million in funding from the program during a tight budget year.

If HCAP money is pulled, Baumgarten said, the organization he oversees may have to eliminate the service of directing people to insurance programs to help meet their medical and prescription drug needs.

“We have been trying to respond to the cases as they arise, such as when local businesses started laying people off,” he said. “(The program) went out and provided presentations to more than 2,000 employees who were losing their jobs and their health-care coverage.”

Spokane-area hospitals have pointed to uninsured patients as one cause of dramatic increases in their bad debt. By the end of the year, hospital administrators fear that bad debts and charity care write-offs could reach $70 million.