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. In the 2011 session, I was also successful in bringing more transparency to our non-profit hospital systems and making sure that hospitals engage with their community when making decisions about what services they will provide the community.

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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