1/30/07 Vol. 4 No. 2

COMMITTEE HEARINGS SCHEDULED!

Senate Health Care Committee. We urge you to attend the committee hearing and testify or sign in support of mental health parity. Senate Bill 5446 will be heard by the Senate Health and Long Term Care Committee on Thursday, February 8, 2007 at 10:00 am.

House Bill 1460 is tentatively scheduled for hearing on Monday, February 12, 2007 at 1:30 p.m. before the House Health Care and Wellness Committee. We will be asking you to contact the committee members next week.

Lobbying Committee Members! Please email or telephone your state Senators on the health care committee and as many of the other committee members as you can to urge them to vote “yes” on the mental health parity bill. (See below for our proposed message.) Small business owners’ contacts with state Senators will be especially crucial to our efforts. If you are a small business owner, please do your best to contact your Senator and the other health care committee members this week.

 

SENATE HEALTH AND LONG TERM CARE

 

Democratic Senator

District

Email

Telephone

Karen Keiser, chair

33

keiser_ka@leg.wa.gov

(360) 786-7664

Rosa Franklin, vice chair

29

franklin.rosa@leg.wa.gvo

(360) 786-7656

Darlene Fairley

32

fairley.darlene@leg.wa.gov

(360) 786-7662

Jim Kastama

25

kastama.jim@leg.wa.gov

(360) 786-7648

Jeanne Kohl-Welles

36

kohl-welles.jeanne@leg.wa.gov

(360) 786-7670

Chris Marr

6

marr.chris@leg.wa.gov

(360) 786-7610

 

 

 

 

Republican Senator

District

Email

Telephone

Cheryl Pflug, ranking

5

pflug.cheryl@leg.wa.gov

(360) 786-7608

Mike Carrell

28

carrell.mike@leg.wa.gov

(360) 786-7654

Linda Evans Parlette

12

parlette.linda@leg.wa.gov

(360) 786-7622

 Message for the Senate Committee Members:

I respectfully urge you to vote “yes” on Senate Bill 5446, the mental health parity bill, and to pass the bill out of committee. It is time to end insurance discrimination against people living with a mental illness! Mental health parity will result in only minimal increases to insurance premiums in the small group and individual insurance markets. These small increases in premiums are more than outweighed by the benefits to small businesses and individuals in terms of reductions in other health care costs, increased productivity, less absenteeism, and fewer claims for disability and unemployment insurance. Please vote “yes” on the mental health parity bill.

Legislative Finder. If you do not know who your legislators are or what district you reside in, please go to http://apps.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder/. You may also call the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-562-6000 to encourage your Senator to vote for parity, but telephoning the Senators’ offices directly is more effective.

Please be sure to transmit this Action Alert! to everyone in your email network. If you have any questions about the coalition or the parity bill, please contact Chelene Alkire at (206) 216-2545 or by email at chelenea@wsha.org or me at randyr@wsha.org. Please reply to this email and let Chelene know you have forwarded our message to your email contacts! Thank you for your continuing support! With your help, we will end insurance discrimination against people living with a mental illness in Washington State!

Randy Revelle, Chairman