Basic Health Plan cuts would hit hard locally

YAKIMA, Wash. -- Kathleen Sattler pays $150 a month for coverage under the state Basic Health Plan for herself and two children. It's a good deal for the Selah single mom, and she thinks it's a good deal for the state, too.

Without affordable health insurance, Sattler and her kids likely would have wound up in the emergency room for routine medical care, a cost that gets spread to everyone else with private insurance.

"When you don't have coverage and you don't go to the doctor, things can end up being more expensive," Sattler said at a news conference Tuesday at a Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic in Yakima.

Sattler is one of 8,389 people in Yakima County who face the prospect of losing coverage under Basic Health, the state's pioneering plan that provides insurance to low-income working people on a sliding fee scale.

As the Legislature looks for ways to close a $2.6 billion shortfall, Basic Health is on the chopping block along with the General Assistance-Unemployable program for 20,000 people statewide with disabilities, roll backs in children's insurance coverage and cuts in funding for community clinics to care for the uninsured.

Carlos Olivares, chief executive of the Farm Workers Clinic, and John Vornbrock, chief financial officer of Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, held the media event to publicize cuts that could land people in bankruptcy due to a medical catastrophe and increase the burden on clinics and hospital emergency rooms.

"Basic Health is targeted to hard-working people. It would be criminal to yank it from them," said Olivares.

Yakima County has more than three times the state average of people enrolled in the Basic Health plan. Eliminating it would increase the county rate of uninsured residents to 18 percent from about 15 percent. The state average is about 11.6 percent.

Statewide, 91,000 people are on a waiting list to receive Basic Health.

Vornbrock said the average family that has health insurance pays out at least $2,000 a year toward covering the uninsured. And the problem is growing, he said.

"We are seeing increasing numbers of uninsured at the hospital," Vornbrock said.

So far, solutions have been elusive in Olympia. Gov. Chris Gregoire has proposed that the state tap $780 million in new revenue to avoid eliminating services such as subsidized health care and college scholarships for low-income families.

She is hoping for $425 million in federal stimulus money, but that would go toward Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor. There is also talk of closing tax loopholes.

"We know the state is in a difficult financial situation," Olivares said. "But we can't cut our way out of this."

* Leah Beth Ward can be reached at 509-577-7626 or lward@yakimaherald.com.