Health providers, disabled decry potential impact of I-1033

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Disabled patients and health care providers on Tuesday blasted Tim Eyman's push to cap government tax collections, saying it would worsen what they called Yakima's health care crisis.

Eyman's Initiative 1033, which is on the November ballot, would cap state, county and city tax increases at a rate matching inflation and population growth.

Anything more would have to be approved by voters.

At a press conference at Provident Horizon Group, a clinic that serves the disabled at 1510 S. 36th Ave., patients and health care officials said such a move would mean disaster to already strained budgets.

"Times are tough enough and let's not make them worse," the clinic's Chief Operations Officer Tom Gaulke said later in the afternoon. "It would affect many programs that rely on city, county and state budgets."

Eyman couldn't immediately be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

Gaulke said a state budget crisis this year already led to 70 percent cuts in some health care programs for the disabled.

One program, Adult Day Health, which offers disabled people services in their homes rather than in nursing homes, was cut so deep that 950 patients were dropped statewide, including six in the Yakima Valley, he said.

It costs less to provide services at home than putting disabled patients in nursing homes, which is covered under federal spending, he said.

Under the initiative, the program would stand a minimal chance of ever regaining the statewide budget cut it underwent this year, he said.

Given the current economic situation, most governments are already operating on bare-bones budgets, he said.

"Which are quite honestly desperate levels considering the current economy," he added.

Gaulke's clinic now serves about 25 people in a state that ranks 39th nationally in providing funding for programs for the disabled, he said citing a report from the state Department of Social and Health Services.

"Everyone has been cut to the bone," he said. "It's not a time to say, 'let's cap everything.' "