Van De Wege keeps health care promise to voters

Support for bipartisan measures will bring critical relief

March 14, 2007

OLYMPIA – In the days and weeks leading up to today’s legislative deadline to pass bills out of the House, several health care measures that made the cut stand out for Rep. Kevin Van De Wege.

Van De Wege (D-Sequim) came to Olympia with stories of people struggling to deal with rising health care costs and a promise to support and work on ways to bring some relief to the problem.

“Rising health care costs affect every family, some harder than others,” Van De Wege said. “I promised help to the working families getting squeezed out of coverage and for those already off health care.”

“We can’t solve the health care crisis overnight in our state. This is a long-range fix that will require help at the federal level. But we have moved towards insuring more and making coverage more affordable.”

Helping small business employees

Van De Wege voted to enact what’s being called the Health Care Partnership. It will pull small employers together, into one insurance pool. The effect will be lower costs to insure families in the larger pool, as well as provide a new way to pay for an employee’s care.

Many of the people the Partnership will help are low-income families, so the state will contribute in addition to employers and employees. Individuals will select their own plans and be able to keep the same plan when changing jobs.

“This is the biggest health care reform we voted on this year and it’s a great vision of where we need to go,” Van De Wege said. “Accomplishing increased coverage, more affordable costs, all through private market insurance, could only have happened with bipartisan work.”

Getting children family doctors

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law Tuesday legislation that will extend health insurance to 38,000 more children in the state. The Legislature has set a goal that all children will have coverage, access to a doctor as they grow up, by 2010.

“Taking good care of children now will pay off later,” Van De Wege said. “A healthy child will do better in school, have more doors open to them, and ultimately live longer.”

Families can find out whether they are eligible by calling the Children’s Medical Program at 1-800-204-6429.

The legislative deadline today prevents House members from passing any further of their bills out of the House. Cutoff also applies to the Senate. Van De Wege’s focus until April 22 is now on passing legislation from the opposing chamber, while considering Senate bills in the House.

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Staff contact: Andrew Dziedzic (360) 786-7218

HB 1569: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=1569&year=2007

SB 5093: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/billinfo/summary.aspx?bill=5093&year=2007

Radio and TV News Directors: To obtain broadcast-quality audio on this issue, or to arrange for TV or radio interviews, please contact Caucus Broadcast Coordinator Dan Frizzell at frizzell.dan@leg.wa.gov or 360.786.7208.