Key Findings

1. Senate Joint Memorial 8006 asks the federal government to enact socialized, universal health care or help Washington state implement its own.
2. SJM 8006 is filled with questionable, debatable, inflammatory claims that should concern lawmakers.
3. In other government-run systems, affordability, access and quality do not go together. Individuals’ health care doesn’t benefit from taking away decisions made between doctors and patients. Citizens — not governments — are the best advocates for their health care needs. 
4. A higher tax burden makes Washington state a less appealing place to live and work. 
5. Safety net programs rightly exist for people in need of health care services. Creating new taxes would add to the cost of living and hurt low-income workers, some of whom already benefit from taxpayer-funded health care.
6. Government-run health care leads to the rationing of care. Demand always outstrips supply, and patient-centered health care is not the priority. 
7. Lawmakers should act to move personal decisions about health care away from the political process and closer to the patient. SJM 8006 asks the federal government to do the opposite.
    

Introduction

The state’s majority party lawmakers want to impose state-based, taxpayer-financed, socialized health care on Washingtonians. In 2021, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 5399, establishing yet another commission — a permanent one, called the Universal Health Care Commission (UHCC) — to look at ways to do this.

The purpose of the UHCC is both to bring about:

“... immediate and impactful changes in Washington’s health care access and delivery system and to prepare the state for the creation of a health care system to provide coverage and access through a universal financing system, including a unified financing system, once federal authority has been acquired.” 

The UHCC cannot implement universal health care until further action is taken by the Legislature and the governor and authority concerning federal health programs is given by the federal government. 

On November 1, 2022, the UHCC issued a baseline report to the Legislature and governor, as required by SB 5399. The report includes the commission’s activities in its first year and some transitional ideas to work toward universal, taxpayer-funded health care. It also notifies lawmakers that it has created a Finance Technical Advisory Committee (FTAC) to help the commission in its work. The UHCC is aware of many federal and financial barriers to achieving a universal health care system in Washington state, which is in part why it created the FTAC .

The Senate Health and Long-Term Care Committee passed SJM 8006 on February 16 in a partisan vote of six to four, with only Democrats in favor of it.