— by Tom Ritter —
The people of Orcas Island need your assistance. If you are a registered voter please sign the petition to ensure that a Healthcare Service District is on the ballot in April 2018. This petition is circulated this week at various locations.
A Washington state law requires that any proposal for a district that provides healthcare services be named a ‘Public Hospital Tax District.” It is important that you understand that this petition is not about creating a hospital on Orcas Island. This measure is about deciding how we want to go about ensuring that all members of our community have access to primary medical care and urgent health care.
In addition, it is essential that the citizens decide how we want our community to have high quality health care in a sustainable manner now and for future generations.
When you sign the petition this is not a vote of approval, but simply ensures the issue will be on the April 2018 ballot for consideration.
We enjoy many benefits living on this magnificent island. The provision of quality health care is a major objective of all people. When you sign the petition to ensure the ballot is available, you are providing an opportunity to exchange information about the future of health care on Orcas Island.
Please join me in signing this petition.
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In my opinion, this is very premature. There has been no public discussion of WHAT the district would cover or how. The choices are broad and the underlying health care finance system is changing under our feet, as it were. Will the PHD be buying insurance for those who don’t qualify? Paying co-pays and deductibles for those who cannot afford to? Or simply satisfying the obligation undertaken by OIMF (on its own authority) under its agreement with UW–a deficit that is expected to run to $750,000 per year.
It is simply not true that signing the petition and putting the PHD on the ballot in April will “allow” us to begin to discuss the numerous policy questions. We can begin that discussion any time, and must. But as structured now, the decision on whether we need a PHD and what it will accomplish will be delegated to the five commissioners who must be elected on the same ballot.
Like the original school bond, this petition seems to put a very complicated cart before the horse.
P.S. Just determined that the commissioners can be elected at large, but that Council has to act to make that decision sometime between the recognition of the initiative and the filing date for candidates.
Who are these folks and why are they trying to move so quickly to the ballot on such a serious and complicated political issue? Oh yes, easy money. Yours and mine.
Orcasites seem to be being baited to sign a petition with the promise that we will understand all the details when the mysterious “group of medical practice wizards” chooses to tell us. Nonsense. The cry goes up. Don’t sign the petition until you know all the details and fail any ballot issue until you do!
I believe that signing the petition to place a measure for or against a Public Hospital District on the ballot in April, 2018 does a lot to stimulate an ongoing and thorough public discussion of this important issue that i believe would be less likely to happen if we did not have something to vote upon.
The Coalition for Orcas Health Care which is seeking signatures for the Petition is made of many concerned members of our community (I would be happy to provide the names of the members of the Coalition to anyone who asks). Our single goal is to ensure that all the members of our community have access to high quality primary and urgent care, including after-hours care, in a financially sustainable and predictable manner now and for generations to come.
At this point the Coalition is seeking the signatures on the Petition so that we can have the very open and community-wide discussion that folks are saying they want. Given that we will have 8 months to have that discussion, it just makes sense to me to sign the Petition.
Art Lange
Who are the members of the Coalition?
Watch the video of the August 29th council meeting for more information on this subject.
I ask if the “tax” will be shared among the 3 different medical facilities? Not just the UW facility.