Feature
“Sisters” launch campaign to save state’s Basic Health Plan
An initiative to pass income tax?
Susan Docekal's insurance premium will rise by 57 percent next month.
Susan Docekal got a letter a while back stating that her monthly health care premium would go up in 2010. But it didn’t prepare her for how much: 57 percent.
That’s the increase the 54-year-old is facing to stay on the Basic Health Plan, a state-subsidized insurance program for the working poor. On Nov. 13, Docekal, who works at a community center in Seattle and makes less than $1,500 a month, got a notice from the state that her premium would go up from $88 a month to $138 starting in January.
Her annual out-of-pocket deductible is going up, too, from $150 to $250. Basic Health is still a good deal, she says, but she’s worried about what’s going to happen to thousands in the state who will lose coverage because they can’t afford the increases.
She’s not alone. Earlier this year, to close a two-year budget gap of $9 billion, the legislature cut $238 million from Basic Health, forcing the state Health Care Authority, which oversees the program, to raise rates and cut off coverage for about 35,000 of Basic Health’s 100,000 recipients. With the state facing a deficit of $2.6 billion more next year, Gov. Chris Gregoire is expected to call for cutting part or all of Basic Health in the 2010 budget that she’s due to release on Dec. 9.
A full cut would save the state $160 million. To prevent that, Seattle feminist group Radical Women has formed a coalition of anti-poverty, labor and health-care activists to lobby for saving and expanding the program in the legislative session that starts in January. The Sisters Organize for Survival Basic Health campaign kicked off Nov. 14 with a Rainier Valley “community tribunal” at which Docekal and other participants gave testimony about the high cost of health coverage and, on the other hand, the consequences of being without it.
The campaign is now circulating petitions that it plans to present in Olympia at a media event similar to one held Dec. 6, when protesters in bandages stood in front of Seattle’s convention center.
“I’ve been lucky, I’m healthy,” Docekal told a group of about 50 participants at the Rainier Valley Community Center. “I really worry about people who are on Basic Health who are not healthy because they’ve also increased the deductible. If you don’t pay it, you get thrown off the plan.”
Chris Smith said he paid $75 a month when he started on the plan eight years ago. His premium is now $237 a month. “That works out to a 216 percent rate of increase that I pay out of my pocket,” he said, “and I’m still low income.”
Cee Fisher, an insurance industry worker and SOS Basic Health organizer, said the governor and legislators are guilty of abandoning poor and working people.
“Politicians for both parties say that because of the economic crash, hard choices have to be made, there’s not enough money,” Fisher said. But, “Governor Gregoire has said she’ll fund the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement and consider completely eliminating programs such as Basic Health.”
“Our priorities have to change,” said Rodolfo Franco, president of Local 304 of the Washington Federation of State Employees. “We need to take care [of people] not just because they’re poor; it’s because it affects all of our social structure. It affects the way our economy works.”
Franco and others said legislators must come up with new sources of revenue to fund social programs. That, Fisher said, should include instituting a progressive income tax in Washington to stop the feast-or-famine cycles and economic unfairness of the state’s sales tax system. “Because we don’t have income tax, the poorest pay 17 percent of their income in taxes and the richest pay only 3 percent,” Fisher said.
State Sen. Adam Kline, a Democrat who represents Rainier Valley and attended the event, introduced a bill in the last legislative session that would have created an income tax to fund education. But he told participants it would be better for them to put a statewide initiative before voters than expect legislators to pass a tax on the wealthy.
“There are folks from unions, environmental organizations and other progressive organizations talking now about whether to plan ahead so that next spring there can be an initiative [with] petitions ready to go in Olympia to put a wealthy income tax ... on the ballot,” Kline said.
“Now that’s counterintuitive, isn’t it? Because you think, ‘Oh, my god, you get the voters out [and] Tim Eyman wins. Maybe, but maybe not,” he said. “Much as I’m not a big fan of the initiative process, it’s very purpose is to get beyond the robber barons – in this case, the insurance industry.”
It’s not a bad idea, says Docekal, who supports taxing the rich and corporations to save programs. But “it’s tossing it back on us,” she said after the meeting. “We elected them to represent us ... so I think we should pressure them to have the guts to do what obviously needs to be done.”
Comments
Fight the Cuts
Washington’s budget cuts ($2.6B) will eliminate Basic health, GAU, early Childhood education 3 year olds Class size reduction, levy equalization, adult dental hearing eye, part D co-pay medicare, child support pass though, ADATSA drug outpatient, maternal care, housing trust
Cut 12500 students off need grants, Cut colleges $89M, apple health for kids, care personal $88+M, senior act $7M, working child care $88M., weatherization, health ch wo
The governor wants raise $700M though tax exemption closing and tax increases. Very difficult with a regressive tax system.
“The cuts are too deep. But they are what “any responsible household would do…” say conservatives, like the Washington Policy Center. Better to make cuts than to do something irresponsible like raise revenues.
In households across the state it would be considered irresponsible to deny a kid treatment for a broken arm for instance, rather than go out and raise some more income to pay for health care. Get a second job, beg, borrow, but hopefully not steal, to get care or treatment that the child needed.
The comparison of a state’s budget to a household budget is tricky, the economics are too complex. But if you go there, acknowledge that the analogy leads to more than one conclusion.
One conclusion is that raising revenue is by far the more responsible choice when faced with denying lifesaving services to our state’s most vulnerable individuals and families.
Many of these families are sacrificing their lives for the economic prosperity of others. Low-income workers, caught in the trap of high interest debt are the ones who are moving dollars into the profit columns of predatory lenders and big banks. Low- income workers work for low wages generating more profits for business owners and share holders. Many people living on fixed incomes in poverty have made the ultimate sacrifice, sacrificing their health for our country in war.
Would an income tax cause as much hardship for those who make more than $100,000 a year, even $60,000 a year as for those in our community who struggle to make ends meet with much less? Do their children not deserve the same basic opportunities? Basic health services, education and healthy food will still be available to those who make more than $75,000 a year after they pay an income tax. The hardship will be much worse for those loosing vital services under an all cuts budget.
A well designed income tax package could lower the tax burden of 70% of Washingtonians by lowering the sales, business, and property taxes and create a more stable source of revenue for our government services. A far more responsible choice for one of the wealthiest states in the nation. Income tax, Income tax, Income tax…” Leslie C
Tell legislators you don’t want these cuts. That you want a progressive tax SB5104 and you will work to leaflet your precinct so neighbors will vote for a corporate and personal income tax. SB5104 lower Property taxes 25% and lowers the State Sales Tax from 6.5% to 3.5% We already have a working families credit in Washington law so the poor will get back money if we pass a state income tax. 1 800 562 6000
Tax Structure Report Dept of Revenue Access Washington. The poor pay 17.3% state & local taxes, the rich 2.9%. ctj.org/ who pays .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Voices 314 S Spruce 3rd Thursday 5:30pm 3264135
In 1932 Grange and their allies where not crying about cuts in schools. They were collecting signatures for Initiative 69 to impose a corporate and personal income tax to fund schools and state services. They passed this initiative but unfortunately the State Supreme Court invalidated it. There are 6000 precincts in the state. The sooner we leaflet our precinct the faster we get a fair tax system.
Please copy this Write why the rich should pay more taxes. Why state income tax.
I could be in a country with a tax rate of 60 to 70% and do better than I have under the state and federal tax collectors of this country.
I have been homeless since Nov. 1994.
More taxes? Yeah right.
The only type of ‘trickle-down-economics’ that actual works is the screwing we get from the government.
A well designed income tax package could lower the tax burden of 70% of Washingtonians by lowering the sales, business, and property taxes and create a more stable source of revenue for our government services. A far more responsible choice for one of the wealthiest states in the nation. hernia symptoms I could be in a country with a tax rate of 60 to 70% and do better than I have under the state and federal tax collectors of this country.
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