Legislation creating the Health Care Responsibility Act has been introduced in Washington State. The primary purpose of the legislation is to expand access to Washington's state sponsored health insurance program. A secondary intent is to impose a fee on large employers who have many workers enrolled in Washington State's state subsidized health insurance program (i.e. Wal-Mart). You can find the text of the bill
here, but I wanted to post an excerpt from it so you can get a flavor of how Washington's Democratic majority legislature is thinking this year.
Excerpt below...
The state of Washington provides health insurance to low-income working families through medicaid, the state children's health insurance program, and the basic health plan. These programs are paying the cost of coverage for some people
who work for large employers who do not offer affordable health care coverage to their employees. The state also funds hospitals, community clinics, and other safety net providers that provide care to those working people whose
employers do not provide affordable health coverage to their workers as well as to other uninsured persons.
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It is therefore the intent of the legislature to:
Expand access to health care by increasing the number of large employers who provide health benefits to their employees and imposing a fee on large employers who do not offer such benefits. Fee revenues will be used to fund basic health plan coverage for as many employees of employers paying the fee as the fee revenues can support. However, consistent with this act, large employers can reduce or eliminate their fee through expenditures on health services for their employees
Wal-Mart is not happy. I can find nothing on the net about this yet, but I heard an interview with Wal-Mart lobbyists on the local NPR station tonight. Wal-Mart flew in a team of 4 lobbyists from Arkansas to Olympia. Their spokesperson had this to say about the proposed legislation:
The Washington State Legislature is overcompensating, imposing burdensome fees on retailers to respond to the health care needs of those few Wal-Mart employees who do not buy health insurance through their employer.
Sounds like pure bs to me. Kudos to the Washington State legislature for having the guts to challenge the corporate leeches. Just this week, they also enacted laws allowing those on state sponsored health insurance to purchase prescription drugs from Canadian pharmacies. Unfortunately, the Canadian Health Minister said in a recent interview that he wants to slow the sales of Canadian drugs to US customers. Just keep the bud comin' in Ujjal.