2025 Legislative Victories

by Ron Lovell,  HCFA-WA Board Member 

Health Care For All-Washington (HCFA-WA) achieved significant policy wins during the 2025 legislative session, advancing our mission of accessible, affordable health care for all Washington residents. Our advocacy efforts using the TakeActionNetwork (TAN) and our Action Alert emails sent more than 3,000 messages to our legislators and contributed to several important bills being signed into law.

The passage of Senate Joint Memorial 8004, sponsored by Senator Hasegawa, marked a crucial step toward universal health care in Washington. This resolution formally requests federal support through three pathways: establishing Medicare for All nationally, passing the State Based Universal Health Care Act, or granting federal waivers to support state-level universal care initiatives. While non-binding, this resolution represents official state endorsement of universal health care principles.

HCFA-WA also celebrated the signing of SB 5083, which ensures access to primary care, behavioral health, and affordable hospital services. This legislation requires licensed hospitals participating in Medicaid to contract with public and school employee benefits carriers, redistributing health care spending to prioritize primary care and behavioral health services.

Hospital price transparency improved through SB 5493, which requires hospitals to publish standard charges for all services and submit machine-readable files listing these charges to the state annually. This enhances consumer ability to compare health care costs before treatment.

The Medicaid Access Program established through HB 1392 represents another victory, leveraging federal funding to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates for physician services to at least Medicare levels.  This change will expand access to care for nearly one-fourth of Washington residents covered by Medicaid.

Additional wins include SB 5480, which declares that medical debt will not negatively impact credit reports or credit scores, and SB 5084, requiring health insurance carriers to annually report their primary care spending.

We were also successful in three important budget provisions that we initiated. In the context of the significant reduction in the state budget, we:

1. maintained our request for $514,000 funding for the UHCC
2. maintained our request for $1M funding to transition those who lose Medicaid coverage to WA Health Benefit Exchange healthcare insurance.
3. secured funding for a study to determine the effect of credit history on health insurance premiums.

Together, these legislative achievements create a foundation for more equitable, transparent, and accessible health care in Washington state, bringing HCFA-WA closer to our vision of publicly funded, privately delivered health care for all Washington residents.

 You can read more about our 2025 Legislative Priorities here.

How Primary Care and Community Organizing Can Bring Us Universal Health Care Now
by Ron Lovell, HCFA-WA Board Member

At our May 2nd Wednesday Speaker Series, we heard an inspiring presentation by Dr. Michael Fine, writer, community organizer, family physician, and President of Primary Care for All Americans.  His talk was based on his experience with organizing primary care clinics in several cities in the eastern United States. Read on for a recap and/or view his complete presentation on our YouTube channel.

First, Dr. Fine outlined the failures of the U.S. healthcare market, emphasizing poor health outcomes, high costs, and deep health disparities. He argued the root cause is inadequate access to robust primary care for all Americans, noting only 43% of adults have a meaningful primary care relationship. He highlighted primary care’s proven ability to reduce costs and improve public health, drawing comparisons to other essential community services like police, fire, and education.

He then described successful community-based models (e.g., Scituate, Rhode Island) and advocated for building a social movement, starting locally, to ensure universal primary care. He detailed strategies such as community meetings, local workgroups, playbooks, and local funding. He stressed the need for a massive increase in primary care workforce and fairer reimbursement models, calling for a shift from fee-for-service to per-person payments.

HCFA-WA volunteer Dr. John Sobeck led the Q&A Session. He was joined by Primary Care Innovator Dr. Garrison Bliss who addressed these questions:

• the critical shortage of primary care providers and the need to expand training and residencies
• the imbalance in reimbursement that drives clinicians away from primary care
• panel sizes for sustainable primary care practice (ideally 300-500 patients per doctor).
• funding models, including local government and employer-based approaches
• concerns about cherry-picking patients and ensuring equitable access
• the role of direct primary care and its affordability for communities
• incentivizing new graduates to serve in underserved areas, including loan forgiveness and community support
• collaboration between organizations (Health Care for All-Washington, Whole Washington) toward single-payer and universal healthcare goals

Key Takeaways:

• Universal primary care is essential, affordable, and achievable through community organizing.
• The U.S. must address workforce shortages, payment reform, and health disparities.
• Social movements, not just legislation, are needed to drive systemic healthcare change.
• Ongoing community engagement, collaboration, and advocacy are critical for progress.

For more details on Dr. Fine’s work, please see this additional resource: The Path to Health Care for All Starts with Community-based Primary Care

SAVE THE DATE of TUESDAY June 10 to hear Bruce Miyahara, the former Secretary of Health from Washington state, share a health care delivery model built in Seattle’s International District: The International Community Health Services. RSVP and more info here.

PLEASE NOTE:  FOR JUNE ONLY, OUR 2WSS WILL HAPPEN ON THE 2nd TUESDAY!

May FTAC Recap: Should Governance be Just an Afterthought?

By Marcia Stedman, HCFA-WA Board Member

This 15th meeting of the Commission’s Finance Technical Advisory Committee (FTAC) opened with a rich discussion around whether the topic of Governance should be tackled sooner rather than later in the Commission’s Work Plan. Some FTAC members recommended against it, stating that doing so would “slow the work.” However, others noted that previous work already done on Governance could inform the Commission’s decisions in this area. No vote was taken, nor did the FTAC reach a consensus on whether Governance should be moved from Phase 3 work to Phase 1, as many experienced universal health care advocates have recommended. As with all other major decisions, the Commission is in the driver’s seat on this one as well.

Illustrating the actual slowness of the Commission’s work, the primary focus of this meeting was an analysis of the past three years of Universal Health Care Commission directives concerning patient cost-sharing, provider reimbursement, and eligibility. Many hours have already been devoted to these topics and others. Notably, the Commission has considered "eligibility" settled for nearly a year.  FTAC liaison David di Giuseppe led a robust discussion that clarified decisions already made and identified areas needing the Commission’s review in order for the work of designing the universal health care system to proceed.

The meeting closed with a review of Cost Containment Mechanisms and a Health Care Cost Board Report.  There was broad agreement that Cost Containment is not a separate element in a system, but rather a necessary component of all other system design elements.  The Cost Board Report focused on hospital pricing as it documented the steep rise in hospital outpatient costs from 2017-2023. Going forward, the Cost Board plans to move from data collection toward specific policy recommendations. Their work is expected to inform the work of the Universal Health Care Commission, as stipulated in the law that created the Commission four years ago.  We invite you to watch the meeting video here.

As usual these days, state and federal budget constraints and uncertainty loomed in the background. If the Federal threats to the Medicaid program and the Affordable Care Act subsidies are carried out, hundreds of thousands of Washington residents will lose health care coverage. Unfortunately, the current Washington state budget will not be able to mitigate the negative impacts of these sudden disruptions to care. 

Main Takeaway: Now more than ever, we need the cost savings that a universal publicly funded system would bring to the delivery of healthcare in our state. 

Join us as we track the next meeting of the UHCC on Wednesday, June 11th, from 2–5 p.m.

Got something to tell the Commission? We encourage you to:

• Sign up to provide public comment by 5 p.m. the day before the meeting occurs.
• We urge our members to push for a single payer plan in their public comments.
• Read our take on past UHCC and FTAC meetings

Subscribe to Health Care Authority (HCA) for updates.

They Cut Medicaid, Not the Waste: Congress Protects Big Insurance While Slashing Care 

Health Affairs: Health Care Provisions in the “Big Beautiful Bill”