The fast and furious 60-day 2018 legislative session concluded just over one month ago. Governor Inslee has been busy; he took action on 308 bills from the Legislature, including the 34 health care access bills that we tracked. Our final legislative wrap-up and budget analysis are now available.

As shared in this blog post (featuring NoHLA attorney, Huma Zarif), our state made huge gains in protecting women’s health this year with the passage of the Reproductive Parity Act and protection of essential health benefits to guard against federal threats.

There are many reports due to the Legislature related to health care access. We are particularly interested in reports on:

• single payer and universal health care coverage systems,
• primary care access for Medicaid clients,
• children’s mental health,
• behavior health integration cost savings,
• stability of the individual insurance market, and
• the impact of Medicaid managed dental care being rolled out this year.

We were pleased to see progress this year in health care, but work remains on affordability, access, and consumer protections. For more information about the issues we will be working on in advance of the 2019 long legislative session, please review our legislative summary.