Sleep Wake

Today I traveled to Olympia for a Legislative summit with the Washington State Medical Association. The state representatives are starting there bi-annual legislative session, and over 100 of us spent a 1/2 day preparing to provide thoughtful comments on this year's health care agenda.

The main request item was asking the state to fund Medicaid, such that persons on State health insurance can get the care they need, and the physicians gets paid on the same fee schedule as the legeslator's health plan. This would require close to a billion dollars, the current budget is for 30 million dollars.

The Governor's education budget is quite comprehensive and laudable, but leaves little money to keep kids or their parent's healthy. The consequence can be more costly when they land in the emergency room. All in all, it was a good day to meet other interested physicians and try to educate the legislature to make the changes that will affect all of us, hopefully in a good way.