Several community partners and Governor Inslee published insightful pieces about health care access. We recommend reading these analyses: U.S. v. Texas: Overturning ACA would adversely affect WA residents. Read more about the Governor’s position on U.S. v. Texas. Trump passed an executive order that aims to privatize Medicare.  Read more in an article by The...

This month, candidates who support health care access and oppose work requirements in Medicaid programs were victorious in three southern states.  In Kentucky, voters elected Andy Beshear, who ran on a platform of defending health care access and Medicaid coverage. Beshear defeated incumbent Republican Governor Matt Bevin, who had filed a waiver to impose work...

Have you or members of your family had trouble finding a dentist to help you stay healthy? The Washington Dental Access Campaign wants to hear about it. In many communities across Washington, dental care is out of reach. Without it, you can lose your teeth, your health—and even your life. The Washington Dental Access Campaign...

On November 6 a federal district judge in New York struck down a Trump Administration rule that embraced denying access to health care under the guise of promoting health care providers’ rights to follow their “conscience.” A May 2019 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule scheduled to take effect on November 22...

Last month’s blog post described President Trump’s October 4 proclamation that would require some categories of immigrants seeking to enter the U.S. to have certain kinds of health insurance within 30 days of entry in order to obtain immigrant visas at U.S. consulates abroad. The kinds of insurance that count are so limited that the...

Health care advocates and consumers should take heart that federal bills to improve health care access and affordability are advancing as far as politically possible in this divided Congress, even as the focus on impeachment hearings dims prospects for major legislation this year. The key House committees favorably reported H.R. 3, now called the “Elijah...

Within the space of one week, the Trump Administration took two new steps to stifle immigrants from getting public health coverage to which they are entitled. But last Friday three federal courts put on hold the Department of Homeland Security’s drastic changes to the”public charge” regulation: On October 11, federal district courts in Spokane, WA,...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s September embrace of a “transformative” prescription drug plan on which “we do hope to have White House buy-in” sparked hearings, renewed hopes for legislation during this first year of a sharply-divided Congress, and was widely lauded as at least a “good first step” toward relieving the burden on consumers....

On October 7, Empire Health Foundation announced that it had settled its lawsuit against Community Health Systems (CHS), the former owner of Deaconess Medical and Valley Hospital and Medical Center in Spokane from 2008-2017. The settlement requires CHS to eliminate hospital debt for thousands of former patients of the two hospitals, estimated as high as...

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...