S-2107.1 _______________________________________________
SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 5768
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State of Washington 57th Legislature 2001 Regular Session
By Senate Committee on Health & Long‑Term Care (originally sponsored by Senators Thibaudeau, Kohl‑Welles, Jacobsen, Prentice, Kline, Spanel and Carlson)
READ FIRST TIME 03/05/01.
AN ACT Relating to health care financing; adding a new section to chapter 41.05 RCW; and creating a new section.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. (1) There is a crisis in health care accessibility, affordability, and choice in Washington state. Health care through insurance companies has failed to control costs, increase access, or preserve choice. More than six hundred thousand Washington residents have no health care coverage. Individual plans are unavailable in most counties. Many clinics, physician practices, and emergency departments, especially in rural areas, are closing or operating at a loss. Employers, faced with fewer choices and more expensive premiums, are reducing employment‑based health care coverage. Simplifying health care financing and eliminating administrative waste inherent in multiple insurance plans can create sufficient savings to extend health care coverage to all residents and enhance fairness in the system.
(2) The people of the state of Washington declare their intent to create a framework and process to involve the citizens of Washington state in the creation of a single financing entity called the Washington health security trust. Through public hearings, research, and consensus building, the trust will accomplish the follow goals: (a) Provide fair, simple, and accountable health care financing for all Washington residents using a single health care financing entity; (b) cover a comprehensive package of effective and necessary personal health services; (c) make health care coverage independent from employment; (d) eliminate excessive administrative costs resulting from the current fragmented system of multiple insurers; (e) generate savings sufficient to ensure coverage for all Washington residents; (f) integrate current publicly sponsored health programs into the health security trust; (g) preserve choice of providers for Washington residents; (h) protect patient rights; (i) keep clinical decisions in the hands of health professionals and patients, rather than administrative personnel; (j) promote health care quality; and (k) control excessive health care costs.
NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. A new section is added to chapter 41.05 RCW to read as follows:
(1) Any Washington resident may purchase their choice of the basic health plan or the state employee health benefit plan for total out-of-pocket costs no greater than seven percent of that resident's annual income.
(2) An employer may choose to purchase the basic health plan or the state employee health benefits plan on behalf of any or all of their employees at a total out-of-pocket cost determined by the state to be no more than seven percent of each employee's income.
(3) The governor and the state legislature shall increase the efficiency and effectiveness of state medical care purchasing to implement this law without reducing the salaries or benefits of teachers, the state patrol, other state employees or employees of contractors with the state for the care of children, the blind, the elderly, the physically or mentally disabled, or other vulnerable populations.
(4) The legislature shall increase taxes on tobacco to an amount no greater than total tobacco taxes in the province of British Columbia, Canada to subsidize state residents' health insurance coverage as provided in this act. Any revenue generated from such increases shall be deposited in the health services account for the purposes of implementing this law and shall not be subject to the provisions of Initiative 601 or 695.
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