Protecting Health Coverage for King County Residents in the Aftermath of the Repeal of the Affordable Care Act

Grantee: Economic Opportunity Institute
Timeframe: July 2017 – June 2020 | Total Amount: $300,000

Year 1: July 2017 – June 2018. Amount: $100,000
Year 2: July 2018 – June 2019. Amount: $100,000
Year 3: July 2019 – June 2020. Amount: $100,000

Economic Opportunity Institute’s (EOI) Health Policy Associate and Executive Director will convene one-on-one meetings to develop preliminary policy models that address current cost, affordability, and accessibility barriers that remain in Washington state and threaten to further prevent health coverage with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.

Addressing these barriers to affordable and accessible health care within and outside of the context of the Affordable Care Act will require innovative and creative policy development, informed by local policy experts.

EOI’s policy proposals will seek, in particular, to address:

• The gaps in coverage for people living in poverty or close to poverty, the unemployed, non-citizens, Latinos, and Native Americans,
• The need to make coverage affordable in premiums and out of pocket costs, and
• The changes needed to take account of health coverage policy changes at the federal level.

EOI will meet with health policy experts who have been stakeholders in the development and administration of the current health coverage regime, including proponents and opponents, with input from experts drawn from practitioners, patient advocates, the business community and labor representatives, and system experts as well as advocates for expanded coverage.

Based on these meetings, EOI will develop several proposals for addressing cost, access, and affordability issues. These proposals will include adjustments within the framework of the Affordable Care Act as well as state policy independent of and not dependent upon the Affordable Care Act. This will include a review and redesign of the Basic Health Plan that was in place prior to the enactment of the Affordable Care Act. The project will also delve into new funding options for coverage, including replicating at the state level some of the federal taxes dedicated to health coverage, which may be repealed by Congress.

After four months of intensive and open-ended one-on-one conversations, EOI will condense these discussions and develop a panoply of policy options for insurance and affordability. Then, EOI will convene a round table policy conference of approximately 15 health policy experts to discuss and evaluate the proposals. The results of this conference will provide the platform for further developing these policy approaches and building the public will and interest in moving them forward into reality. EOI intends to have policy proposals drafted for consideration by public leaders before the end of 2017.

Beginning in 2018, EOI will focus on working with allies and experts to determine which proposals are the best for insuring coverage, and which proposals will most likely gain the gravitas and traction to impel them into actual implementation. EOI will then detail the design, language, geographical context, and funding sources to enable implementation. We may be working on several different proposals, each requiring its own package of funding, wording, and networks of support.