Another Fantastic Friday from Rep. Debra Lekanoff

||| FROM THE OFFICE OF REP. DEBRA LEKANOFF |||

Understanding Legislative Cutoffs

Although it feels like we just started, we’re over a third of the way through this year’s legislative session! In fact, yesterday we passed the first legislative cutoff of the session. Legislative cutoffs are milestones bills need to reach by certain dates in order to receive further consideration. Any bills that don’t make it to these milestones will need to wait until the next legislative session to continue the process or be reintroduced at the start of a new biennium. 

Because this is a short, 60-day session, the first set of cutoff dates are already here. House bills that were not approved by House policy committees by yesterday, Feb. 3 – or next Monday, Feb. 7 for fiscal committees – will need to be reintroduced next year. Any House bills that fail to be approved by a vote on the House Floor by Feb. 15, will also need to be reintroduced. As strongly as we may feel about passing our top priorities, we always want to make sure that we’re making good policy — even if that means we have to continue the fight into the next session. 

View the 2022 Session cutoff calendar on the Legislature’s website.

Zero Emissions Vehicles 

The transportation sector represents the largest source of carbon emissions in Washington state. In order to truly take action on climate change, we must continue to find ways to reduce emissions on our roads and in our communities. That’s why I am proud to be supporting the Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) Rebate Program in the budget. The program will help reduce carbon emissions and meet Washington’s 100% ZEV by 2035 mandate by helping consumers purchase a ZEV with some great rebates: 

• $7500 for new ZEVs 
• $5000 for used ZEVs 
• $1000 for e-motorcycles and e-bikes 
• An additional $5000 for those with income less than $61,000/year 

By enacting this rebate program for electric vehicle purchases, we know more Washingtonians will be able to buy an EV, and by financially incentivizing electric vehicle purchases we can help get carbon emitting internal combustion engine vehicles off the roads. This ties together well with the 76 EV charging stations slated to be built at the Library Commons Project in Mount Vernon, which is another project that will reduce our community’s carbon footprint by relying on renewable electricity and use of energy-efficient materials.    

*Rebates will be available for EVs with an MSRP under $55,000 for sedans and $80,000 for vans, SUVs and pickup trucks and available to people who earn under $250,000 per year as a single-tax filer, or under $500,000 per year for joint-filer households. 

Courtesy of the Office of the Governor

Tackling our Climate Crisis

One of my top priorities this session is to continue the great work we started last year to tackle one of the root causes of our climate crisis: burning fossil fuels in our homes and buildings. Our homes and buildings now generate nearly a quarter of our state’s climate pollution; and with the devastation of climate change at our doorstep, we simply can’t wait to get serious about addressing one of the last frontiers in our shared fight.

Thursday morning, I attended the Executive – Legislative Climate Meeting with Governor Inslee and many of my colleagues to discuss the priority climate legislation for this session, including multiple building decarbonization bills. They include House Bill 1767, which is sponsored by my seatmate Rep. Alex Ramel, House Bill 1770, and House Bill 1774/Senate Bill 5722. Together, these bills work to significantly reduce fossil fuel pollution from our homes and buildings while creating a path to a clean energy future that ensures everyone has access to efficient, affordable, reliable energy.

Expanding Access to Affordable Hospital Care

The high cost of health care is one of the largest drivers of bankruptcy in our country. Nationally, over two thirds of people who file for bankruptcy cite medical issues as a key contributor. To help alleviate this problem, Washington has a charity care law that requires hospitals to forgive some or all of the out-of-pocket costs of essential health care for low-income patients who qualify.

Unfortunately, Washington’s law only requires hospitals to cover care for an individual making up to $12,900 per year and a family of four making up to $26,500, which is the federal poverty level. Hospitals are allowed to decide their own level of discount for people making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level. This ambiguity allows hospitals to abuse the system. Attorney General Bob Ferguson just successfully sued two hospital systems for failing to adequately inform or provide charity care to eligible patients. That’s why this week on the virtual floor of the People’s House, I voted to pass House Bill 1616, which will expand and standardize charity care practices across the state. Hospitals profit off the health and safety of Washington residents, and this law requires them to give back to those in our society who need it most.  HB 1616 increases the eligibility for full write-offs of out-of-pocket expenses up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level and requires discounts for those earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, expanding access to free and reduced healthcare to 2.2 million Washingtonians. Under this bill, an additional 1.2 million Washingtonians will become eligible for a full write-off of their medical debt. Individuals making up to $38,600 or a family of four making $79,500 will now be eligible for a full write-off and families earning up to $106,000 would be eligible for a 50 percent discount. Health care is essential for every Washingtonian, not just the ones who can afford it. This bill will help provide equitable health care for millions of Washingtonians and guarantee that a trip to the emergency room will not result in families losing their home or not being able to put food on the table.

Notable Meeting: Keep Our Care Act

Last week, I met with a member of the Huskies for Reproductive Justice group, a part of Pro-Choice Washington, to discuss the Keep Our Care Act (HB 1809 / SB 5688). Mergers and acquisitions between health care entities like hospitals, hospital systems, and provider organizations frequently occur in our state and can negatively impact cost, quality, and access to necessary health care as there is minimal oversight. This allows large health care systems to essentially dictate a patient’s access to care. 

The Keep Our Care Act is designed to ensure health entity mergers, acquisitions, and contracting affiliations improve rather than harm access to affordable quality care within a community. The bill includes:

• A prohibition on health entity consolidations that diminish access to affordable quality care;
• Attorney General oversight, compliance, and enforcement power to ensure health entity consolidations do not negatively impact access to health care services;
• A health equity assessment so that health entity consolidations address the needs of marginalized communities; and
• Community input through public notification of proposed consolidations and the opportunity for public hearings and comment.

“As a member of Huskies for Reproductive Justice (part of Pro-Choice Washington) at the UW, I am super excited to share about the Keep Our Care Act. This act is important to guarantee that health care mergers do not get in the way of quality care, particularly end-of-life, gender-affirming, and reproductive care. Everyone deserves access to medically sound advice that can care for all of their needs and this bill ensures that nothing gets in the way of that. For me, the most important part of this will be informing the communities and getting their opinions on mergers because it is their care that is being affected and we should all have a say in that.” – Madeline Ellis

Are You Disaster Ready?  

Remember the early days of the pandemic when store shelves were bare of canned food, meat, and toilet paper? Well, you can prepare NOW in order to avoid those stressful situations in the future. If you can complete one task each month this year, you’ll be prepared for when the next disaster strikes. 

The Community and Economic Development Committee heard from the Emergency Management Division (EMD) this week about the role we play as legislators in natural disasters. This year we have bills to provide more financial support to communities after a natural disaster and many of us are in conversations about how to take the lessons learned from the pandemic to make our economies more resilient. But one of the biggest roles we have is communicating with you about the resources available and the ways we can all prepare! 

The Prepare in a Year Guide provides a quick and easy way to get ready for anything and is available in English, Simplified Chinese (简化字), Korean (한국어), Russian (русский), Spanish (Español), and Vietnamese (tiếng Việt). As EMD shared, we are the fourth-most disaster prone state in the country so the more we do to prepare now, the better off we will be!  

Thank you all for taking to the time to read this week’s Fantastic Friday, and for taking an interest in our progress at the House of Representatives. I will be sending out a Fantastic Friday letter each week throughout the legislative session. 

Please feel free to reach out to me using the information below, with any questions, inquiries, or concerns you may have.

I am here for you!