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Senator comes to Capitol Hill’s Country Doctor to announce progress on affordable health care

Kristi Brown Wokoma, Country Doctor Community Clinic patient (left), with Senator Maria Cantwell (Image: MvB/TheSunBreak with permission to CHS)

Kristi Brown Wokoma, Country Doctor Community Clinic patient (left), with Senator Maria Cantwell (Image: MvB/TheSunBreak with permission to CHS)

Flanked by Linda McVeigh, executive director of Country Doctor Community Health Centers and patients from the clinic, Senator Maria Cantwell came to 19th Ave E Thursday to announce a step forward in providing affordable health care. Cantwell said the Federal Basic Health Plan Option (FBHPO) will finally launch in 2015.

“What is so successful about [the plan],” Cantwell said, “is that it pairs private-sector innovation with public-sector purchasing power, so that states can bundle and direct federal dollars toward a managed care system that’s very creative, very flexible, cuts waste and spending, realigning incentives toward better care.”

In 1987, the late Governor Booth Gardner signed Washington State’s Basic Health Plan into law at the same Country Doctor clinic — it’s now become the basis for the federal plan, thanks in part to Senator Cantwell’s writing it into 2010′s Affordable Care Act.

“More than half of the patients we serve at our non-profit clinics are uninsured,” said McVeigh. “This increasingly includes the middle class who have lost their insurance and simply cannot afford to pay for individual plans.”

TheSunBreak.com has more details on the announcement and Cantwell’s appearance on Capitol Hill.

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[…] healthcare services. We stopped by the 19th Ave E clinic this spring as Senator Maria Cantwell dropped in to champion affordable health care. You can also support the Country Doctor directly — more info on their […]

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[…] healthcare services. We stopped by the 19th Ave E clinic this spring as Senator Maria Cantwell dropped in to champion affordable health care. You can also support the Country Doctor directly — more info on their […]