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Fair Share Showdown Today

By Brian
Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 09:31:25 AM PST
Section: Washington State Topic: Legislation

Will the Fair Share Healthcare bill be punted into the initiative process, or will Speaker Chopp get the House bill out of the rules committee and onto a floor vote?

According to some who are close to the process, lobbying on the legislation continued at the Capitol until almost 2 a.m. this morning. There was hope for the results of a meeting between Speaker Chopp and a large number of legislators, including the Labor Caucus within the House Democratic Caucus. They were trying to persuade the Speaker to allow the legisaltion to come to the floor but their efforts were unsuccessful.

The Speaker did agree to consider a compromise proposal that would require passage of the legislation but limit its enforcement to three years and study the impact of the legislation while it was in force. While some of the bills proponents question the necessity of the study, they are willing to compromise to get this bill voted on.

The House floor session starts at 10am and ends at 5pm, if the bill is not passed by then, it is dead for the session. At this point, it seems to all come down to Speaker Chopp. If you want to see this bill passed, now is the time to contact him and let him know your support:

E-mail: Chopp_Fr@leg.wa.gov
Phone: (360) 786-7920

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Fair Share Showdown Today | 14 comments (14 topical)

Seattle Times article on bill

I was reading this and came here, so want to let everyone know about it too.

Safeway's local President wrote a letter to the legislature noting the unfairness of competing with a company like Wal-Mart, who has more than double their employees on taxpayer funded health care:

In the letter, Greg Sparks, president of Safeway's Seattle division, complained about having to compete against companies that don't provide health insurance. And he urged House Speaker Frank Chopp to take "immediate action" to help ease what he described as a growing health-care crisis.

by botch on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 09:50:11 AM PST

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Call and e-mail your legislator today

Make it happen, people!

And if you don't know who it is (like I did just a couple of weeks ago), please post here and someone will probably be able to help you out.

by botch on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 09:51:56 AM PST

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My letter to Speaker Chopp by Brian, 02/14/2006 10:13:13 AM PST (none / 0)

cool! I sent mine from the healthcarevoter site by botch, 02/14/2006 10:57:19 AM PST (none / 0)

not a big fan of the canned letter by eastside lib, 02/14/2006 11:20:56 AM PST (none / 0)

"canned letter" can be personalized! by WA4HealthCare, 02/15/2006 09:21:22 AM PST (none / 0)

Don't forget to call the office by eastside lib, 02/14/2006 11:17:42 AM PST (none / 0)

One additional pressure point

Also call your own legislators and ask them to pressure Chopp, especially if you live in a swing district.

And ask any business owners you know to send letters to their legislators.

PortDork

by PortDork on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 11:07:13 AM PST

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Called mine and called Chopp by eastside lib, 02/14/2006 11:16:36 AM PST (none / 0)

Letter sent, and phone call made

The person on the other line was very cordial, and sounded kindof rushed. I hope that is a good thing!

by walla wallow on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 01:03:47 PM PST

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My understanding is that no one

in the D caucus, including Frank is "trying to kill" this bill but that the bill as worded has some very large flaws. It may just be that not enough time remains to achive an agreed substatution that has all of the intended effect and none of the unintended effect. Lets hope they get it right and can do so in time.

by Particle Man on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 02:36:09 PM PST

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What do you hear the problem is?

Particle Man,

What do you hear the problem to be? I think that this argument may just be a convenient excuse not to vote on the bill. The coalition working on this bill believes they have the votes to pass the house if it comes up for a vote, so the flaws can't be that large. Part of the negotiations to keep Costco neutral on this bill was to assure them that they (and by extension other "good" large employers in the state) would not be brought under the penalty mechanisms unintentionally (part time employees for instance). I know there was a lot of hard work put into making bill specific and targeted (and legal under federal law); so I would be very interested to hear any substantial problems you've heard about.

PortDork

PS: Don't take this to be accusatory, I'm legitimately curious what real specific examples people are using for this line of challenge.

by PortDork on Tue Feb 14, 2006 at 03:50:39 PM PST

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Portdork by Particle Man, 02/15/2006 09:08:15 AM PST (none / 0)

Particle Man by PortDork, 02/15/2006 10:32:45 AM PST (none / 0)

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