Issue Position: Health

Issue Position

As Vice Chair of the House Health Care & Wellness Committee, I helped prepare Washington for implementation of Affordable Care Act. I worked hard on the creation of Washington's Health Exchange in 2012. The Exchange ensured that small business has affordable access to easily understandable health care choices and that uninsured people have access to health care. Because of our commitment to making sure health reform worked for Washington, we now have more people enrolled in health insurance coverage than 47 other states. I've continued to focus on improving consumer protection in health care by making sure that hospitals engage with their community when making decisions about what services they will provide the community and that they provide appropriate notice to patients about the availability of charity care, addressing medical debt and health care mergers and acquisitions.

I've spent much of my time over the last few years attempting to improve our mental health care system. We have not turned the corner yet on the work we need to do but I've continued to focus on providing outpatient services to those in need of care and improving the staffing and structure of our state run mental health hospitals.

Before becoming a legislator, I was asked by former Governor Gary Locke and Governor Chris Gregoire to directly assist them in developing priorities for their health care budgets. My expertise has been invaluable in the legislature. Over the next decade, making health care reform work--on the ground, in people's lives--will be one of the most important jobs for the legislature. I bring a strong, experienced, practical voice of reason to these decisions. I worked successfully with the legislature in the past, winning support for mandatory notification by hospitals of restrictions placed on any practitioners within the facility, criminal background checks of individuals seeking to become licensed health care providers and a bill allowing the Department of Health to pay malpractice insurance premiums for health care providers volunteering in rural and underserved areas.

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