By Bevin McLeod, Co-Founder and Board President, Alliance for a Healthy Washington
It’s no secret that our fragmented health care system operates in silos when administering care. We see it particularly when important communications about a patient’s care aren’t shared with the pertinent providers, resulting in care gaps, and this fragmented system plays a big role in higher costs and utilization and leads to unnecessarily poor health outcomes. These gaps in communication don’t only exist in the health care system, they also exist in reform efforts, and have created silos that stall progress.
We are starting a new non-partisan member-based 501(c)(4) organization, Alliance for a Healthy Washington (AHW), to break down the silos in health care reform, and to be a conduit for communication between government agencies, elected officials, public and private sector, and advocacy organizations involved in Washington State’s health care policy reform efforts. While the organization itself was just formed in 2018, collectively the board offers over 50 years of combined policy experience.
Specifically, AHW “…advocates for WA State residents in order to enact sustainable, fair, and transformative healthcare policy that both advances our healthcare system while also addressing the current crises facing residents statewide.”
As I worked at the policy level for the last several years, I saw individual organizations working on this issue at varying levels of bandwidth, but no one was working cohesively, no one was really talking to each other. The reality is that if we are truly going to disrupt and ultimately change the status quo, we are going to have to speak in a more unified voice. So we decided to launch this umbrella organization so that all interested organizations can join, and we can provide that streamlined advocacy.
During the 2018 legislative session, AHW took the lead on advocacy in winning the Pathway to Universal Health Care Workgroup which I now serve on. We supported and advocated on legislation such as Reproductive Health Care for All, the American Indian Health Parity Act, state behavioral systems reform, the Heal Act, Cascade Care, and several more. This summer AHW convened our first semi-annual health care roundtable with a congressional member, representatives from other congressional offices, members of the Washington State legislature, and a wide variety of health care community leaders.
“I’m drawn to this work for many reasons. But losing our home when I was a child as a result of my dad’s health issues made it clear change is needed,” says Nicole Gomez, Co-Founder and Board Secretary of AHW. “Families should not lose their home because someone gets ill. AHW aims to be a catalyst for systemic change but we recognize it takes a village. That’s why we aim to build a membership consisting of all organizations affected by high insurance prices – employers, unions, tribes, nonprofits, and others. If we want change, we need to speak with a unified voice and to focus on the end goal – sustainable, fair, and transformative policy that advances our health care system.”
AHW is now researching what it would take to expand Medicaid coverage to age of 26, develop a state-based plan for our undocumented population, expand dental coverage and access to adult Medicaid recipients, and will provide recommendations on universal health care via the Universal Health Care Workgroup. We meet with organizations, like Northwest Health Law Advocates, to learn the strengths and weaknesses of these ideas and uncover how policy changes would help, or hurt, the goal of quality, affordable health care.
Website: http://www.allianceforahealthywa.org/
Sign up as an organizational member: http://www.allianceforahealthywa.org/become-a-member/