The Washington State Hospital Association (WSHA) strives to ensure that all our state’s diverse communities and patients have access to high-quality and equitable health care. Hospitals provide the only lifesaving care to patients regardless of their ability to pay – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Hospitals have inpatient and outpatient care, everything from primary to specialty care. Ninety percent of community hospitals in our state are non-profit or public hospital districts.
In the 2025 legislative session, many urban hospitals and health systems took significant cuts to payments through the PEBB/SEBB programs, a 1% MCO cut administered directly on hospitals, and a tax increase on B&O. These cuts start prior and will be in addition to the cuts to Medicaid and the hospital Safety Net Assessment Program through HR 1.
Hospitals are the only providers mandated by the state to provide charity care. In 2024, Washington’s hospitals employed about 120,000 people. Hospitals statewide provided more than $464 million in charity care – an increase of more than $100 million annually since 2021.
In some communities, hospitals are often the only providers seeing patients on Medicaid and Medicare and often at unsustainable payment rates. Nonprofit hospital systems are the only providers mandated to provide community benefits. While nonprofit hospital systems do have property tax relief, this is more than offset by charity care and Medicare and Medicaid costs that hospitals subsidize.
WSHA’s 2026 legislative priorities are grounded in the following key principles:
- Ensure patients have health coverage and access throughout the care continuum before, during and after hospitalization.
- Ensure hospitals are financially stable institutions serving their communities, long into the future.
- Maintain flexibility for hospital operations while mitigating new regulations that often add costs and complexity to the care hospitals deliver.