Reps. Peter Abbarno and Jim Walsh discuss Republican support for I-2124

hi state representative Jim Walsh here in the gallery above the floor of the Washington House of Representatives again with my good colleague and neighbor geographically Peter abarno today the house of Republicans made the sixth motion for a hearing for the sixth initiative to the legislature that we're considering this year this is initiative 2124 it would reform the states insult solvent Washington cares act that is the long-term care benefit program nursing home care essentially and uh for the sixth time every Republican voted to have a hearing for initiative 2124 and every Democrat voted no so we're 0 for six on getting hearings for initiatives uh Peter actually led the motion made the uh parliamentary maneuver and but butet Peter's more involved in this even than that uh frankly initiative 2124 took some pieces of legislation that Peter had sponsored uh in earlier sessions and Incorporated them into that initiative so so Peter tell everyone what happened today and what you think of uh the long-term care program in general well you know the again we made another motion to uh have a hearing in the healthcare and wellness committee and the house Democrats voted against that the people in the state of Washington have spoken and the legislature needs to listen and we tried to force that and unfortunately house Democrats voted against it but this is a really important initiative because we know that the voters have already voted an advisory vote against having a long-term care program um we know that we have almost 500,000 uh working washingtonians who opted out of this program it's unfair uh and one of the uh biggest messages we heard is that it should be optional and this initiative would make that optional uh it's not a good program uh at least the way it's set up I think the initiative is something that the the voters in the state of Washington wanted to hear um and have on the ballot um and so we tried to get a hearing so we could find out more information about what they're saying and sadly again uh it fell on deaf ears and so another motion uh to have an initiative to legure uh referred to a committee to have a hearing and house Democrats voted against it so it's unfortun however we're going to continue to message us we're going to continue to communicate about why this is an important initiative absolutely we are I mean this is also a tax issue the this Long-Term Care Nursing Home benefit program is funded by a payroll tax taken out of working people's paychecks before they get their paycheck and that's one of the reasons I think that so many washingtonians have questions and and really are opposed to this program there are other things too I mean the the the the benefit for a nursing home care is not great it's not not very large and there are all these asteris is on it there conditions and and and basically loopholes where people can get bumped out of the program not get the benefit even though they've had the money taken out of their paychecks it it's not a great deal as Peter said and and definitely needs reform initiative 2124 makes it optional anyone can opt out of it if they don't want the money taken out of their paycheck and if they don't think the benefit is worth the cost uh you'll hear some people say that this is a a death strike on on the program not necessarily it could be uh a trigger for the program to be reformed properly so more people want it uh it's it's a the beginning of a good reform on a program that needs it and Peter thanks again for trying to get these things worked through the Parliamentary process but we're not giving up we still want these initiatives to be heard we in in the ideal world we like the legislature to vote in support of them uh but that will be determined in the weeks ahead in this legislative session uh but for now know that we will keep pressing uh forward to get these good reforms into policy here in Washington well that's it for now uh again stay strong be well and we'll talk to you soon