Governor's Budget Eliminates Health Coverage for 101,000 People

                                     Washington Uninsured to Reach Nearly One Million

December 9, 2009 – Seattle, WA – Today, Governor Gregoire released her state budget, which completely eliminates Washington’s Basic Health program, the General Assistance Unemployable medical program (GA‐U) and health insurance coverage for 16,000 children. Following on the heels of last year’s decimating cuts, which were much deeper for health care for the poor than any other service, Governor Gregoire’s budget proposal would finish the job, pulling the rug out from underneath the growing number of Washington families who need assistance to weather the recession. While the Governor’s budget will create more than 100,000 uninsured Washingtonians, the budget also eliminated grants to community clinics, which are essential to help offset the cost of caring for the uninsured. These draconian measures undermine our shared values to care for our most vulnerable populations and will create a crisis for Washington state.

The Basic Health program is a Washington state insurance plan for individuals making less than $21,600 per year (or $36,600 for a family of three). The majority of Basic Health enrollees receive their care at community health clinics, local non‐profit organizations whose mission is to provide access to care to community members, regardless of their ability to pay. As of Wednesday, Dec. 9 the waiting list for Basic Health topped 82,000, more than those actually enrolled in the program. The eradication of Basic Health will financially cripple not only the 65,000 individuals losing coverage, but also the community health clinics and hospitals who will still provide uncompensated care to nearly a million Washingtonians who cannot afford commercial health insurance.

Washington residents have had a long standing commitment to Basic Health. In 2001, voters approved Initiative 773 to dramatically expand the program. But today, given the state’s budget crisis, the Governor is proposing eliminating Basic Health completely.

Another program proposed to be eliminated, GA‐U serves 20,000 people who are temporarily physically or mentally unable to work. Recently, Community Health Plan and the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) implemented a new cost‐saving model for the GA‐U program which is also designed to more quickly improve the health of enrollees. The elimination of GA‐U will leave more than 18,000 people with no recourse for help and lead many of them to hospitals, jails, or the streets. A GA‐U client who receives mental health treatment and job training costs taxpayers approximately $1000 per month until they transition back to the workforce. On the other hand, if this same client is not treated, he can cost the jail system $9000 per month or the hospital emergency room thousands of dollars for a single visit.

A third budget cut, despite a commitment to cover all kids by 2010, proposes the elimination of health insurance coverage for more than 16,000 children currently enrolled in Apple Health. It costs the state $1,000 a year to provide health insurance for a child through Medicaid; a single hospital stay for a preventable condition such as an ear, nose, and throat infection costs an average of $4,600.

Lastly, in addition to the elimination of Basic Health and GAU, the Governor also eliminated a number of services offered through Medicaid, including Maternity Support Services (MSS), and adult dental services. The elimination of MSS, which provides services to 50,000 high risk pregnant women, is particularly disturbing given the amount the state saves by providing prenatal care and the gains made in the last decade. Inadequate prenatal care leads to costly low birth weight babies with long‐term health issues. The average cost of medical care in the first year for a premature or low birth weight baby is more than ten timesthe cost for a newborn without complications. Cutting the entire Medicaid adult dental program will hurt 120,000 people in Washington state who rely on the program. Untreated oral disease is extremely painful and leads to costly, long‐term health problems, including adverse pregnancy outcomes, diabetes, respiratory and heart disease. Patients with severe oral pain and infection will seek care in costly emergency rooms.

The Governor offered a glimmer of hope by acknowledging the essential nature of these programs and promising to restore some of them in a second budget.

“Last year we balanced the budget deficit on the backs of the working poor, cutting basic services to the bone, not just trimming the fat. More than 40,000 Washington residents lost Basic Health Plan insurance. Thousands of nurses and health care workers were laid off. They and thousands of other unemployed people found that when they needed it, the health care safety net was in tatters,” said Lance Hunsinger, CEO of Community Health Plan, a non profit insurer serving as the safety net for more than 240,000 individuals in Washington. “Clearly we cannot take another round of the same. We need a balanced solution—careful cuts and smart revenue increases—that puts both families and our state’s economy on the track to recovery as soon as possible,” said Hunsinger.

With Washington’s unemployment at 9.3%, the number of uninsured has climbed to more than 875,000 over the past year. Eliminating Basic Health and GA‐U, while reducing the number of insured children will increase the number of uninsured people to nearly one million in one fell swoop. Grants to community clinics, which were eliminated in the Governor’s budget, are essential to help offset the cost of caring for the skyrocketing number of uninsured.

But these costs don’t just go away, they’re absorbed by all Washingtonians. In addition to the human cost in lives and suffering, privately insured families pay more than $1,000 each year to carry the burden of the state’s uninsured.

“Last year’s budget cuts left the health care safety net teetering at the brink, jeopardizing access to health care in every Washington community. The budget announced today would plunge the safety net over the cliff,” said Mary Looker, CEO of the Washington Association of Community & Migrant Health Centers. “This budget is like closing down the fire department while the city burns to the ground. Community clinics will close. Emergency room visits will skyrocket. The tab for taxpayers will be far more than the cuts can possibly save.”

For more than 15 years, Community Health Network of Washington (CHNW) and the Washington Association of Community Health Centers (WACMHC) have advocated on behalf of community health centers and the patients they serve. Today Washington’s community health centers serve 640,000 patients at over 130 clinic sites across the state. It is the community health center mission and federal mandate to serve all people regardless of their ability to pay. Washington’s health centers provide access to high‐quality, affordable care to Washington’s most vulnerable people and families, including one quarter of the state’s uninsured population.

Community Health Plan provides managed care for more than 241,000 individuals and families throughout Washington. It is the state’s largest provider of the Basic Health Plan and the second largest health plan serving members of the state’s Medicaid program, including Healthy Options and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. It is the sole health plan for enrollees in the GA‐U program. The health plan’s delivery system includes more than 300 primary care clinics, 1,600 providers, 9,000 specialists, and 90 hospitals. Community Health Plan also features an incentive program that rewards members for getting preventive care they and their families need. www.chpw.org

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For more information please contact: David Kinard Director, Marketing & Corporate Communications 206‐613‐8949 david.kinard@chpw.org