We’re more than halfway through the 2026 state legislative session! There are only 3 weeks left to go in this 60-day session, which is slated to end March 12.
This week marked a key milestone: Tuesday was the “first chamber cutoff,” or the date by which policy bills need to have passed out of the chamber that introduced the bill, either the House or the Senate. Bills that weren’t passed by their originating chamber by Tuesday are now “dead” for the session, unless they are allowed longer because they are considered necessary to implement the budget. Now we’re in the final sprint to get bills through the second chamber policy committee, fiscal committee, and ultimately passed by both chambers.
Bills Impacting Health Care
Below is a non-exhaustive list of bills that impact health care in Washington, as well as their status as of Friday February 20th. Note: there is a minor lag in the legislative website which may lead to some delayed statuses, and the list includes some bills from 2025 session that were reintroduced in 2026. Let us know if we missed anything!
| Bill | Status |
|---|---|
| HB 1187 (Ryu) – Protecting patients involved in motor vehicle accidents from delayed ambulance bills | Alive |
| HB 1390 (Goodman) – Repealing the community protection program | Alive |
| HB 1574 (Macri) – Protecting access to life-saving care and substance use services | Alive |
| HB 1574 (Macri) - Protecting access to life-saving care and substance use services | Alive |
| HB 1634 (Thai) - Providing school districts and public schools with assistance to coordinate comprehensive behavioral health supports for students | Alive |
| HB 1784 (Marshall) - Certified medical assistants | Alive |
| HB 2110 (Schmick) – Personnel for ambulance service interfacility specialty care transports | Alive |
| SB 2152 (Kloba) - Permitting the medical use of cannabis by qualifying patients in specified health care facilities | Alive |
| HB 2196 (Simmons) – Expanding access to PANDA PANS treatment | Alive |
| HB 2211 (Reeves) – Medically tailored meals | Alive |
| HB 2230 (Zahn) - Streamlining monitoring and oversight activities related to community residential service business providers | Alive |
| HB 2242 (Bronoske/Cleveland) – Preserving access to preventive services by clarifying state authority and definitions | Alive |
| SB 2339 (Simmons) - Concerning the regulation of nursing | Alive |
| HB 2340 (Simmons) - Applying substance use disorder monitoring program provisions to nursing assistants | Alive |
| HB 2360 (Donaghy/Cortes) – Access to albuterol in public and private schools | Alive |
| HB 2319 (Farivar) - Renaming certain state residential facilities for persons with developmental disabilities | Alive |
| HB 2385 (Macri) – Medicaid access program | Alive |
| HB 2429/SB 6224 (Callan/C. Wilson) – Supporting children and youth behavioral health | Alive |
| HB 2505 (Eslick) - Exempting certain former foster care providers from adult family home licensure | Alive |
| HB 2540 (Bronoske) - Emergency medical technician recertification | Alive |
| HB 2548 (Taylor/Dhingra) – Strengthening health care market standards | Alive |
| HB 2475 (Ortiz-Self) - Language accessible public programs, activities, and services conducted, operated, or administered by state agencies | Alive |
| HB 2577 (Macri) - Hospital inspections | Alive |
| SB 5124 (Muzzall) – Establishing network adequacy standards for skilled nursing facilities and rehabilitation hospitals | Alive |
| SB 5240 (Wellman) Anaphylaxis medications in schools | Alive |
| SB 5395 (Orwall/Rule) - Making improvements to transparency and accountability in the prior authorization determination process | Alive |
| SB 5594 (Harris) - Concerning biosimilar medicines and interchangeable biological products | Alive |
| SB 5847 (Saldaña) - Access to medical care in workers' compensation | Alive |
| SB 5906 (Hansen) – Establishing data and personal safety protections within areas of public accommodation for all Washington residents | Alive |
| SB 5915 (Harris) - Concerning the health technology assessment program | Alive |
| SB 5917 (Bateman) - Improving access to medication abortion | Alive |
| SB 5984 (Slatter) - Modernizing and clarifying timely payment requirements for health carriers. | Alive |
| SB 5923 (Muzzall) - Critical access hospital designations in Skagit County | Alive |
| SB 5924 (Slatter/Thai) – Expanding prescriptive authority for pharmacists | Alive |
| SB 5947 (Hasegawa) – Establishing the Washington health care board | Alive |
| SB 5993 (Alvarado) – Lowering the interest rate for medical debt | Alive |
| SB 5981 (Cleveland) – 340B drug pricing program | Alive |
| SB 6019 (Cleveland) - Improving the functioning of home care rate statutes | Alive |
| SB 6024 (Gildon) - Streamlining monitoring and oversight activities related to community residential service business providers | Alive |
| SB 6025 (Cleveland) - Definition of fetal death | Alive |
| SB 6103 (Muzzall) - Making payments for services provided by a rural emergency hospital subject to appropriation | Alive |
| SB 6183 (Liias) - Coverage for HIV antiviral drugs | Alive |
| SB 6210 (Slatter/Stonier) - Health plan certification process | Alive |
| SB 6286 (Orwall) - Concerning the state's ability to fine private detention facilities that deny entry to the department of health for an inspection. | Alive |
| HB 1026 (Abbarno) – LTSS trust spousal benefits | Dead |
| HB 1034 (Ortiz-Self) – Nonopioid drugs for treatment of pain | Dead |
| HB 1038 (Jacobsen) – Prohibiting puberty blocking medications, cross-sex hormones, and gender transition surgeries for minors | Dead |
| HB 1062 (Stonier) – Providing coverage for biomarker testing | Dead |
| HB 1072 (Walen) – Preserving access to protected health care services | Dead |
| HB 1076 (Walen) – Health technology assessment program | Dead |
| HB 1077 (Walen) – Raising awareness of pain control options for intrauterine device placement and removal | Dead |
| HB 1090 (Alvarado) – Contraceptive coverage | Dead |
| HB 1093/SB 5507 (Kloba/Cleveland) – Providing coverage for massage therapy under medical assistance plans | Dead |
| HB 1124/SB 5112 (Simmons/Bateman) – Establishing a prescribing psychologist certification in Washington state | Dead |
| HB 1129/SB 5121 (Stonier/Frame) – Concerning health plan coverage of fertility-related services | Dead |
| HB 1158/SB 5428 (Leavitt/Harris) – Improving community inclusion services for individuals with developmental disabilities | Dead |
| HB 1176 (Walsh) – Concerning greater consistency in the provision of health care services for minors under the age of 17 | Dead |
| HB 1199/SB 5331 (Taylor/Cortes) – Strengthening consumer protection through increased insurer accountability for violations of the insurance code | Dead |
| HB 1200/SB 5211 (Taylor/Frame) – Authorizing payment for parental caregivers of minor children with developmental disabilities | Dead |
| HB 1277 (Shavers) – Creating a sales and use tax exemption for the purchase and use of medical equipment and supplies by a critical access hospital | Dead |
| HB 1291 (Rule) – Cost sharing for maternity services | Dead |
| HB 1326/SB 5353 (Thai/Cleveland) – Diabetes prevention and obesity treatment act | Dead |
| HB 1444 (Thai) – Rapid whole genome sequencing | Dead |
| HB 1482 (Thai) – Assuring equity in health coverage | Dead |
| HB 1496/SB 5254 (Berry/Orwall) – Strengthening patients' rights regarding their health care information | Dead |
| HB 1523/SB 5344 (Macri/Riccelli) – Establishing the essential worker health care program | Dead |
| HB 1560/SB 5638 (Reed/Saldaña) – Funding health care access by imposing an excise tax on the annual compensation paid to certain highly compensated hospital employees | Dead |
| HB 1675/SB 5387 (Thai/Robinson) – Corporate practice of medicine | Dead |
| HB 1812 (Rule) – Concerning patient-centered equitable access to anesthesia services and reimbursement | Dead |
| HB 2106 (Simmons) – Requiring carriers to provide substantive notice to health care providers and health care facilities about significant contract modifications | Dead |
| HB 2122 (Leavitt) – Requiring hospitals to offer immunizations for influenza in certain cases | Dead |
| HB 2157/SB 6120 (Ryu/Wellman) - Regulating high-risk artificial intelligence system development, deployment, and use | Dead |
| HB 2176 (Thai) – Exempting information in collaborative drug therapy agreements from disclosure under the public records act | Dead |
| HB 2182 (Thomas) – Improving access to abortion medications | Dead |
| HB 2190 (Cortes) – Language access providers' collective bargaining | Dead |
| HB 2202 (Penner) – Establishing a dental care pilot at the Rainier school residential habilitation center | Dead |
| HB 2204 (Parshley) – Health technology assessment program | Dead |
| HB 2283/SB 5953 (Rule/Slatter) – Establishing a medical loss ratio of at least 90 percent for health plans | Dead |
| HB 2314 (Penner) – Dental care services at residential habilitation centers | Dead |
| HB 2331 (Penner) – Preventing reductions in access to pediatric primary care and behavioral health services | Dead |
| HB 2453 (Farivar) – Psychiatric pharmacists | Dead |
| HB 2490/SB 5895 (Peterson/Saldaña) – Providing an alternative condition for extraordinary medical placement for incarcerated individuals | Dead |
| HB 2522 (Thai) – Advancing oral health equity and protecting access to preventive dental care | Dead |
| HB 2555 (Lekanoff) – Medicaid coverage for traditional health care practices | Dead |
| HB 2599 (Kloba) – Protecting the integrity of therapy and psychotherapy services | Dead |
| HB 2613 (Thai) – Establishing safety and regulatory requirements for compounded medications | Dead |
| HB 2658/SB 6305 (Stonier/Riccelli) – Truth in mental health coverage act | Dead |
| HB 2667/SB 6284 (Shavers/Liias) – Providing consumer protections for artificial intelligence systems | Dead |
| HB 2677/SB 6342 (Kloba/Braun) – Requiring coverage for seizure detection devices as durable medical equipment under certain circumstances | Dead |
| SB 5002 (Fortunato) – Federal immigration enforcement | Dead |
| SB 5019 (Chapman) – Expanding the situations in which medications can be dispensed or delivered from hospitals and health care entities | Dead |
| SB 5031 (C. Wilson) – Health care coordination regarding confined individuals | Dead |
| SB 5064 (Liias) – Creating an advisory council on rare diseases | Dead |
| SB 5075 (Muzzall) – Cost sharing for prenatal and postnatal care | Dead |
| SB 5086 (Robinson) – Consolidating the public employees' benefits board and the school employees' benefits board | Dead |
| SB 5243 (Hasegawa) – Restricting the use of health care premiums for political lobbying | Dead |
| SB 5321 (Nobles) – Access at public postsecondary educational institutions to medication abortion | Dead |
| SB 5324 (Cleveland) – Aligning the implementation of application programming interfaces for prior authorization with federal guidelines | Dead |
| SB 5326 (Cleveland) – Accessing an emergency supply of insulin | Dead |
| SB 5823 (Cortes) – Patient advocates | Dead |
| SB 5916 (Harris) - Concerning nonopioid drugs for the treatment of pain | Dead |
| SB 5924 (Slatter) - Expanding prescriptive authority for pharmacists | Dead |
| SB 5955 (Hasegawa) – Medicaid deprivatization act | Dead |
| SB 5985 (Orwall) - Concerning endometriosis | Dead |
| SB 6105 (Liias) – Raising the exemption from garnishment of earnings from judgments arising from medical debt | Dead |
| SB 6159 (Dhingra) – Strengthening public hospitals | Dead |
| SB 6161 (Slatter) - Concerning department of health information on dementia | Dead |
| SJR 8206 (Hasegawa) – Amending the Constitution to establish a right to affordable health care | Dead |
Revenue Bills
We're also tracking bills that that could be necessary to implement the budget. Select revenue or tax bills:
- HB 1870 (Zahn) – Concerning county property tax levies for public health clinic purposes
- HB 2073/SB 5808 (Parshley/Robinson) – Funding health insurance premium assistance
- HB 2100/SB 6093 (Scott/Saldaña) – Enacting an excise tax on large operating companies on the amount of payroll expenses above the minimum wage threshold of the additional medicare tax to fund services to benefit Washingtonians and establishing the Well Washington fund account
- HB 2175 (Klicker) - Exempting providers of free durable medical equipment from retail sales and use tax for certain items
- HB 2326 (Bronoske) – Emergency medical service levies
- HB 2300 (Reeves) – Assessing employers for their workers' health care costs paid by the state
- HB 2487/SB 5949 (Macri/Robinson) – Taxes imposed on insurers operating within the state
- HB 2720 (Macri) - Funding behavioral health emergency services
- SB 6129 (Robinson) - Taxation of cigarettes and other nicotine products
- SB 6346 (Pederson) - Establishing a tax on millionaires
- SB 6228 (Frame) – Removing a tax exemption for the warehousing and reselling of prescription drugs