If you’ve never found yourself down and out — without health insurance — you may not realize it, but the Basic Health program is one of the best things Washington has going. It’s a state-sponsored entity that helps people access low cost healthcare coverage through private insurances — acting as a safety net for thousands of people in our state. Right now, roughly 105,000 are enrolled in Basic Health, with 8,049 of those people living in Pierce County.



The problem is — and stop me if you’ve heard this already — the economy is in a downward spiral the likes of which has never been seen. As things go down the toilet, so do the state budget projections for the coming years, and a massive deficit matched with dwindling tax income means cuts for all state-run programs. The numbers don’t lie.

One of the programs facing massive budget cuts is Basic Health — meaning the 105,000 people currently enrolled in the program face an uncertain future.



Governor Gregoire’s proposed budget for 2009 and beyond — which will be ironed out and presented to the legislature come January and implemented in July — currently calls for a 42 percent cut in Basic Health, an effort to save the state $250 million. Before those proposed cuts take place, though, Gregoire has asked Basic Health to trim enrollment by about 8,000 people by June 30 of next year, which they’ll do through attrition, accepting only one new Basic Health applicant for every two that leave the program until then.

Yes, these are scary times all around — not only for the people who depend on Basic Health, but the people in charge of deciding where and how to cut the program while limiting the negative impacts on one of the most vulnerable slices of society.



Robert Kinch, marketing and development director for Community Health Care — a Pierce County based agency that serves low income patients, many of whom depend on Basic Health — seems to still be grappling with the possible repercussions of the proposed cuts.  Besides longer waits for service, and decreased accessibility, Kinch says the impact on his agency and patients could be drastic.



“We don’t know yet. It’s a little hard to say,” says Kinch of what the future holds for Community Health Care. “If we lost 42 percent of our Basic Health patients we’d lose somewhere in the neighborhood of a million dollars. It’s going to be a challenge, that’s for sure.”



Dave Wasser, a spokesperson for the Washington State Health Care Authority, which oversees Basic Health, says balancing the cuts while maintaining the highest level of service possible will be the main goal of Basic Health moving forward — something the agency is likely to do both by reducing the number of people enrolled and by reducing the coverage those enrolled receive.



“Virtually every aspect of state government has to prepare for substantial cuts,” says Wasser. “The approach we’re going to take is to make cuts while still trying to protect the most vulnerable. It’s like the old saying. We’re going to try to thin the soup rather than lengthen the line.



“I think, unfortunately, what makes (Basic Health) vulnerable is it is a program that’s at the state’s discretion,” continues Wasser. “It’s easy to take it away and not have other dominoes fall.”



Or is it?  Unfortunately, we’ll soon find out.