Evidently, Washington state has so much money flowing through its health care system that it can now afford to provide charity care for anyone who visits.  That’s the assertion, reported by the Spokesman-Review, of a lawsuit filed by the Washington State Hospital Association against the state Department of Health (DOH) “over a proposed rule allowing out-of-state patients to receive charity care, claiming such a policy would make medical care harder to access and more expensive for Washington residents.”

Charity care is a major cost driver in healthcare, as “Washington hospitals provided $370 million worth of free or discounted medical care in 2021 through charity care policies”.  Now, state bureaucrats are threatening the solvency of the hospital system by taking the position that “using geographic boundaries to determine charity care eligibility is not supported under current law.” You can read on to see how the “new approach would make Washington State a medical tourism destination” here… Spokesman-Review.

The state income tax that Governor Jay Inslee and other Democrats have fought so many years for may not yet be the reality the liberals (and their state budgets) are counting on. That’s the story behind the Washington Policy Center’s announced filing of “an amicus brief supporting the petition to the United States Supreme Court to review the Washington State Supreme Court ruling upholding the capital gains excise tax.”

We can now wait for the U.S. Supremes to decide whether to take the case, based on the question that “if Washington can lay an excise on out-of-state sales of capital assets involving only out-of-state property, may California impose a gas tax on gasoline purchases in Arizona?” You can decide for yourself if it’s scary that should this misinterpretation of the law stand, then “other states will surely follow Washington’s lead and enact novel excise taxes of their own” here… Washington Policy Center.

Sometimes, headline creators capture the real arrogance of non-professional opinion-editorial writers. Such is the case with the Seattle Times topping a loud screed by a liberal who claims to know her Eastlake neighborhood, telling the entire city to “Get on board” with a city plan “to give up virtually all on-street parking along its main arterial, Eastlake Avenue East — some 350 spaces — and convert it to protected bike lanes.”

The author laughingly assures local businesses about to be put out of business of the existence of “study after study showing that removing parking for bike lanes has a neutral to positive effect on local businesses.” And, of course, in hilly and very wet Seattle, “protected bike lanes that will make bicycling fun and safe” because she says so!  You can read about how this lane-reducing, traffic-increasing plan means “traffic behind the bus goes only as fast as the bus and will stop when the bus does” here… Seattle Times.

Shift won’t get around to talking to all the candidates populating ballots this fall, so we will try to fill in the gaps by providing links to other coverage. One such source is PubliCola, which is interviewing all the council candidates that will respond, starting with Ron Davis running for the open seat in Position 4 (University area).

You can read as much of the interview as you want, but what stood out to the Shift team was how many words the candidate could use to say nothing – starting with this quote (shortened with ellipses because so much of it contributed nothing to the answer) on how he would have voted to make public use of drugs illegal: “I’ve been asked many times how I would have voted. And my answer is this: After talking to [a variety of] people, I got a really conflicting picture that emerged about what the past practice was in the last ten years… and I don’t have staff, and I don’t have access to city data. So when I’ve gotten like the ‘yes/no/maybe’ surveys, I’ve said ‘maybe.’ “ More from this profile in courage here… PubliCola.

File this as a source for races you may not be hearing much about, but money is spilling out of the high-cost Spokane mayor’s race into the surrounding city council races. That allows the Spokane Good Government Alliance to focus on Paul Dillon, one of the candidates running on mayoral candidate Lisa Brown’s council slate, and how “he proudly retweeted calls to defund the police.” Read on for more social media musings from Mr. Dillon here… Spokane Good Government Alliance.

Shift has noted the shifting political winds in Southwest Washington, with the Third Congressional District emerging as one of the top 10 races in the country for 2024. The Washington State Standard comes in today with a quarterly review of the latest fundraising numbers, with over $3 million raised so far in the race featuring “U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat whose unexpected win in 2022 flipped a Republican-held seat in southwest Washington.”

Rep. Gluesenkamp Perez is being challenged by Republican Joe Kent, whom she defeated last year, and Camas City Councilwoman Leslie Lewallen. You can see how the dollars line up here… Shift, Washington State Standard.

Brian Heywood, founder of Let’s Go Washington and a beekeeper, used last week’s Newsmaker Interview to detail six key initiatives the organization aims to bring to the 2024 Washington State Legislature. Each initiative requires 324,516 valid signatures from registered voters by this December 29, though Let’s Go Washington hopes to secure more than 400,000 signatures for each one to ensure a lawful count. The initiatives cover diverse areas, including easing police pursuit restrictions, repealing the carbon tax to reduce gas prices, allowing residents to opt-out of the Long-Term Care payroll tax, repealing the Capital Gains income tax, prohibiting any income taxes by the state or local governments, and establishing parents as primary stakeholders in a child’s upbringing through a parents’ bill of rights. Read more.

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