Gov. Inslee Signs SB 5589 on Primary Care Spending

From a House of Delegates resolution in 2018 to the governor’s desk, Washington now joins the growing number of states choosing to elevate primary care.

On Thursday morning, Gov. Jay Inslee signed SB 5589, which will add primary care spending measurement and reporting to the activities of the Health Care Cost Transparency Board. The bill also authorizes the Office of the Insurance Commissioner to assess health insurers’ primary care expenditures.

WAFP is grateful for the many partners along the way. Among them are Sen. June Robinson (D-Everett), who saw value in WAFP’s idea and shepherded it through the legislative process; the numerous stakeholders who helped the proposal before it reached the legislature, including the Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Washington State Medical Association; WAFP’s indispensable advocacy consultants, Jonathan and Patty Seib; the researchers who sought to prove empirically what seemed to be true anecdotally, including those at the Robert Graham Center, the Milbank Memorial Fund, and the Primary Care Collaborative; and last, but certainly not least, the original authors of that 2018 resolution, Dr. Bill Gillanders and Dr. Judy Pauwels.

Here’s to a healthier Washington!