The 2025 legislative session begins today. This year’s session is the first in the two-year biennium and will last for 105 days. Before they adjourn at the end of April, lawmakers will need to pass the state budget. The WSHA Board of Directors recently approved WSHA’s 2025 legislative agenda, and our Government Affairs team is hard at work reviewing the session’s first bills. WSHA Board and Virginia Mason Franciscan Health CEO Chair Ketul Patel and WSHA Rural Hospital Committee Chair and Ocean Beach Hospital CEO Merry-Ann Keane will also join the Senate Health and Long Term Care Committee for a work session Friday, Jan. 17 to talk about access to inpatient health care.
Lawmakers have their work cut out for them this session, as the state is facing a $10-billion-to-$12 billion budget deficit over the next four years. Outgoing Gov. Inslee’s proposed budget called for taking $75 million state/$370 million total from the hospital Safety Net Assessment Program (SNAP) and moving it to the general fund, which WSHA strongly opposes. This week, WSHA will testify at the Appropriations and Ways and Means committees with strong concerns about this cut.
Inslee’s budget also proposed capping Public Employees Benefits Board (PEBB) and School Employees Benefits Board (SEBB) payments to hospitals. WSHA will advocate against these caps, as they would shift costs to the commercial market and negatively impact patient access to care.
Read the rest of WSHA’s legislative agenda on our website.
This week’s top bills with hearings in Olympia
HB 1162: Concerning workplace violence in health care settings
WSHA hopes to amend HB 1162, which would require all health care settings to develop a workplace violence prevention plan and require a timely investigation of every workplace violence incident, including steps to prevent future similar incidents and documentation of staffing levels at the time of the incident. WSHA hopes to amend the bill to allow for protected information to be deidentified in compliance with state and federal privacy laws, add an effective date of Jan. 1, 2026 (rather than the standard implementation date once the bill would be signed into law). (Remy Kerr)
WSHA weighing in: Jan. 13-17
Monday, Jan. 13
- House Appropriations
- HB 1198: Making 2025-2027 fiscal biennium operating appropriations. (Andrew Busz)
Tuesday, Jan. 14
- Senate Ways & Means
- SB 5167: Making 2025-2027 fiscal biennium operating appropriations. (Andrew Busz)
Wednesday, Jan. 15
- House Labor & Workplace Standards
- HB 1155: Prohibiting noncompetition agreements and clarifying nonsolicitation agreements. (Cara Helmer)
- HB 1162: Concerning workplace violence in health care settings. See article above. (Remy Kerr)
- Senate Human Services
- SB 5079: Addressing the burden of unintentional overpayments on older adults and adults with disabilities served by the Department of Social and Health Services. (Zosia Stanley)