Ag and Rural Caucus for May
| Better Practices 6:30 pm Thursday 2 May Universal Health Care Carrie Wallace, chair, Whole Washington Kathryn Lewandowsky, vice-chair, Whole Washington https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88689149657?pwd=R3dXbFRpYVUyeGVhb3ErTFI0QXlpZz09 Policy Briefing 6:30 pm Thursday 16 May Off-Shore Wind Development off Washington Coast Brian Polayge, UW School of Engineering https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85907982157?pwd=MU4vV3E3VGZ5VU02dnhvZjg2b3hKZz09 Paste link into browser. |
| How to Sell Universal Health Care Fighting for your agenda Advocates like us have to make choices. Who is our audience, what arguments do we use, when do we go into the weeds, when to appeal to emotions, what to do about allies, how can you control the agenda. Whole Washington advocates for universal health care in Washington. It will be good to get their take on how to handle these questions. A legislative vehicle that Whole Washington got behind this session was ESJM 8006. The senate memorial is organized like a resolution with “whereas” and so forth. What is striking is that the ESJM text is very strong on redressing the administrative burden of our fragmented system. There is welcome attention to the comparative advantage that Washington businesses might enjoy if they could lower actual insurance costs and the business cost of administering health insurance for their employees. This same emphasis is not found in the bill report which is an ill-connected list of arguments for universal health care. This is not Whole Washington’s writing but reflects the hazards of the necessary handing over the bill’s summary to committee staff. This is a question of controlling the agenda. The competing themes left the bill open to easy opposition. Representative Joe Schmick (R-LD 9), usually an ally of health care advocates, announced ahead of the vote that he would oppose because the proposal did not have a finance package. Now, the memorial was not designed to incorporate a finance note. Whole Washington’s very clear funding formula had no home in the process. We can ask Carey and Kathryn about the advocacy choices they made and others made for them. This will be a good learning session for all of us. Don 30 April 2024 |
| Cost. Access. Quality Universal Health Care You think the US military budget is large? Multiply it by 5 and you come up with something like the $4.5 trillion we spend on our health. Health care spending is over 17 percent of our economy. Most other countries spend less than 10 percent. Is size (cost) alone cause for re-thinking our system? Probably. But there are other reasons, like the unequal consumption of health care by income and race; like poor outcomes – declining life expectancy and high infant mortality. In Washington we are rich enough and confident enough to think we can do health better. We have tried for a while. “Over the last 35 years, Washington’s wide-ranging efforts aimed to provide a comprehensive solution to these pervasive problems…” And these pervasive problems? Cost. Access. Quality. Our analysis and our values have moved us to universal health care. It answers most of our questions. The Washington Policy Center, though, does not agree: (Opposed) Washingtonians already have access to quality health care and skilled doctors. Universal health care is expensive, and taxes would have to be raised on low-income populations to fund it. In addition, specialty care would be compromised. In countries that have a universal health care system, wait times for services are lengthy. Their universal health care systems have failed. What do you think? One of our presenters, Kathryn Lewandowsky, spoke in favor of universal health care at the same hearing that the Washington Policy Center slammed the idea. Join Kathryn and Carey Thursday to talk about it. Don 29 April 2024 |
| Whole Washington Advocacy Universal Health Care May’s Better Practices session is about Universal Health Care. The session will, of course, talk about the universal health care and its features. Whole Washington is our presenter. We will also talk about how an advocacy group can move forward an agenda that mixes impossible federal oversight with optimistic state-level possibilities. Where do you start, with the feds or Olympia? How much detail do you present and to whom? The 2024 Legislature took up ESJM 8006 that advocated for federal waivers to allow states to innovate. It passed the senate in 2023 and was re-introduced in 2024 where it stalled in the house. Whole Washington in April reported “Alas, 8006 is dead, dead, dead”. And it was dead in the house partly because Whole Washington was not able to advocate with a full deck. We will talk more about the what and how of universal health care next Thursday with Carey Wallace and Kathryn Lewandowsky from Whole Washington. |
| Policy Briefing: Off-Shore Wind Development in Washington Off-Shore wind proposals are coming to Washington. We are late to the game. Europe is well ahead of North America in adopting off-shore wind, the east coast on the Atlantic is ahead of us on the west coast, and California and Oregon on the Pacific are ahead of us. What can we learn from the early adopters? The “what” in this case is both the technical and the political. Why go to bother of building turbines in the sea? And what are the effects on local fishing industries? Join Brian Polayge, UW School of Engineering, for our policy briefing on 16 May. Brian knows the technical aspects of off-shore wind and understands well the politics. Don 26 April 2024 |
Our Better Practices roundtable is on the first Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm.. Use the link above for 2024.
Our Policy Series is on the third Thursday of each month at 6:30 pm. Use the link above for 2024.
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