Save Health Care in Washington Grassroots Action Network Expands in 2008. . . as Activists Help Expand Access to Health Care for All Washingtonians

Save Health Care in Washington activists asked for it and they got it.

Nearly 30,000 activists sent messages to Olympia during the 2008 legislative session, urging the Legislature and the Governor to expand access to health care in the 2008 budget. Despite a very tough budget session in which Governor Gregoire held the line on spending to create an $850 million rainy day fund, she signed into law all three cost-effective heath care solutions supported by Save Health Care in Washington:

WON! Expanded dental clinic capacity — facilities, equipment, providers — to make sure people get preventive dental care to avoid long-term and costly health problems.

WON! Expanded Health Professional State Loan Repayment and Scholarship Program, which tackles Washington’s growing primary care provider shortage by helping to keep the finest providers — doctors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists — working in Washington.

WON! Protected funding for community health clinics, which provide a complete range of health care services, from primary medical care to dental care, regardless of patients’ ability to pay. A critical part of the health care safety net, these clinics serve one out of ten people in our state.