SEATTLE -- The irony, they say, is that millions of federal health care reform dollars may be on the way to sustain -- and even expand -- the state's Basic Health insurance program.
But not for another four years.
Meanwhile, community health clinics that service primarily low-income, immigrant and minority communities may be feeling years of tighter budgets while they try to uphold a mandate to serve as many patients as they can.
That includes uninsured patients like Tomas Lasam, who has an appointment at International Community Health Services, or ICHS, in Seattle's International District.
"It helps a lot because, if you're low income, they kind of reduce the rates," Tomas Lasam said. "It's not free, but it's subsidized."
Clinics like ICHS provide medical, dental, maternal, and counseling services. About 220,000 of their patients in 2009 utilized programs like Basic Health to help pay for their treatment.
But since the downturn in the economy, Basic Health has seen funding cuts reduced the number of spots available from 100,000 in 2008 to 65,000 now. Another 100,000 are on the waiting list for enrolling in the program.
Meanwhile, that means the number of uninsured patients coming to community health clinics -- patients that individual clinics subsidize through their own funds -- has gone up.
"What happens to those who don't get in?" said Rebecca Kavoussi, assistant vice president of government affairs for Community Health Plan. "They go to emergency rooms for care, they delay care until they get sicker, and their costs are higher, and that gets passed along to all of us who have private insurance or are taxpayers."
Federal health care reform may help. Senator Maria Cantwell announced that the federal law includes provision for up to $180 million to keep Basic Health running. CHP said however, the bulk of that money would not arrive until 2014.
"We'll continue to see patients regardless of their insurance status, but in the future, we'll have many more patients who are able to pay for the cost of their care," said Kavoussi.
State lawmakers may be banking on that funding while they attempt to pass their own budget. Both state House and Senate versions of the budget keep Basic Health funding at the same level as 2009, though that itself is drastically lower than in 2008.
CHP said 900,000 Washingtonians have no health insurance.
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