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Senate health bills that passed floor session before the cutoff

The past two weeks have been busy in the Washington State Legislature, both houses have had a marathon of floor sessions in order to get bills passed before the house of origin cutoff on Tuesday at 5 pm. 

In the Senate there were 20 health or health related bills that were heard in the past two weeks and managed to make it to the House. Here are the 11 that we have been watching.

First up are the bills that made it through floor sessions with minimal debate and support on both sides of the aisle. Senate Bill 5115, sponsored by Sen. Karen Keiser (D.), would create an occupational disease presumption for frontline employees during a public health emergency for the purposes of workers’ compensation. The bill passed with a vote of 48 in favor and one member, Sen. Keith Wagoner (R.), against the bill. The bill has been referred to the House Labor & Workplace Standards Committee.

Senate Bill 5068, sponsored by Sen. Emily Randall (D.), would create one year of postpartum coverage through Apple Health. This bill passed unanimously, with 46 voting in favor of the bill, and has been referred to the House Health Care & Wellness Committee.

A bill sponsored by Sen. Karen Kieser, SB 5003, would prohibit life, disability, health, and long-term care insurance policies from discriminating against living organ donors. This bill also passed unanimously, with 46 voting in favor of the bill, and has also been referred to the House Health Care Committee.

Senate Bill 5195, sponsored by Sen. Marko Liias (D.), would require a hospital to dispense opioid overdose reversal medication to a patient with symptoms of an opioid overdose, opioid use disorder or another adverse event related to opioid use upon discharge. This bill passed with 45 voting in favor of the bill and two voting against the bill, Sens. Reuven Carlyle (D.) and Kevin Van De Wege (D.). This bill has been referred to the House Health Committee.

Senate Bill 5293, sponsored by freshman legislator Sen. T’wina Nobles (D.), would create a mental health sentencing alternative allowing imposition of a period of community custody and mental health treatment in lieu of a standard range sentence for certain defendants who are diagnosed with a serious mental illness. This bill passed unanimously and has been referred to the House Public Safety Committee.

But some health bills were more controversial in the Senate, here are the six bills that we are watching that passed with smaller margins.

Senate Bill 5190, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Holy (R.), would make health care workers eligible for unemployment insurance benefits for workers who are terminated or left work to quarantine during a public health emergency. This bill passed with 34 votes in favor, seven of which were Republican votes, and 15 against, including Sen. Mark Mullet (D.). This bill was referred to the House Labor Committee.

Sen. John Braun (R.) when arguing against the bill said:

This puts in place where health care workers can say ‘I don’t want to do this anymore, I’d rather go on unemployment insurance.’ And while I certainly acknowledge the stressful situation that they have to work in and I want to make sure that they are taken care of… but I’m not sure that this is the right thing for us because that’s one less health care worker that we really need in our hospitals.”

Senate Bill 5052, sponsored by Keiser, would require the Department of Health, subject to funding, to designate health equity zones statewide and develop projects that meet the needs of each zone. This bill passed with 30 members voting for the bill, including Sens. Chris Gildon (R.) and Brad Hawkins (R.), and 17 members against the bill. This bill has been referred to the House Health Committee. 

Another bill sponsored by Randall, SB 5228, would require public medical schools to develop a health equity curriculum for medical students and requires them to complete a course, or courses, on health equity before graduating. This bill passed the Senate with 29 votes in favor, including Gildon and Holy, and 20 votes against the bill. This bill has been referred to the House College & Workforce Development Committee.

Senate Bill 5399, also sponsored by Randall, would establish the universal health care commission to develop a plan, that would be implemented by 2026, to provide comprehensive, equitable and affordable health care coverage. This bill passed with 29 members voting for the bill and 20 voting against the bill, including Mullet. 

Sen. Lynda Wilson (R.) argued against the possible costs of this bill.

I’m looking at this right now and I see the cost shifts here from that goes from model A to the status quo in the difference. You’re looking at a 32 billion dollar difference, 14 billion dollars comes from individual contributions right now, and 18 billion dollars comes from employer contributions. That’s what has to be made up by the state is 32 billion dollars, just the swaps and that’s of course including the assumption that Medicaid and Medicare will increase when there’s not that assurance of the single payer plan. So I really need to look at this very deeply before we go into something where we don’t know where 32 billion dollars is coming from.”

This bill has been referred to the House Health Committee. 

Senate Bill 5377, sponsored by Sen. David Frockt (D.), would establish, subject to availability of funds, a premium assistance program for individuals purchasing health insurance on the Health Benefit Exchange. This bill passed with 30 members voting for the bill, including Sen. Ann Rivers (R.), and 18 voting against it.

Sen. Ron Muzzall (R.), who opposed the bill, said:

I personally feel that this would have been a better choice for next session, so that we could have seen what Cascade Care One would have done. And allowed us to just step back and see how well it worked. But today I will be voting no on this just for the reason that I think that we should have taken more time to consider what the outcome was going to be.”

This bill was referred to the House Health Committee as well.

The last bill we are watching is SB 5203, sponsored by Van De Wege. This bill would allow the Health Care Authority to enter into partnerships with other states, state agencies or nonprofit entities to produce, distribute or purchase generic prescription drugs. This bill passed with a vote of 28 to 21, and was referred to the House Health Committee.

Rivers, who voted against the bill, said:

What makes our system work is the competition that drives prices down. So say we do go out to bid and we choose one bidder. Suddenly we’re fairly captive. If we were running the state like a business this wouldn’t be acceptable. But we haven’t even gotten the result back from all the work that we’ve done on transparency and what’s really driving cost. So this bill seems a little bit premature to me but the underlying premise is also quite disturbing that now we’re going to go with one entity who without competition might be able to ask for whatever they like.”

This story was cross-posted on our sister site State of Reform.


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