WMCMA President's Message

May 2, 2008

Legislative battles: A tale of two tragedies.

Health care continues to evolve as a prominent political and social issue. The debate is (or should be) about creating a model that provides optimum outcomes in a timely and cost-efficient manner.

Currently, I'm licking my wounds over two recent and resounding legislative defeats for my industry. In summary:

Exempting Home Medical Equipment from Washington State Sales Tax
For eight years, we have been trying to exempt home medical equipment from Washington State Sales Tax - consistent with 47 other states. To all involved, this was an open-and-shut case of doing the right thing. Significant effort went into passage of this legislation, including the creation of a website, over 100 personal legislative visits to state Senators and Representatives, hosting legislative receptions, and active support by virtually all patient advocacy groups. All but two legislators assured us that this was a cause they would support. In the end, the legislation died in committee without being voted on.

Medicare Competitive Bidding On Complex Rehab Equipment
A few years ago, a very few over-zealous providers sharply drove up utilization of power wheelchairs using aggressive, if not downright fraudulent, marketing. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) failed to proactively ferret out this abuse on a timely basis, costing the taxpayer tens of millions of dollars. Finally, Congress and CMS's solution was to overhaul the system and roll out a competitive bidding process. The result of this process - many qualified rehab providers being unfairly disqualified from participating in providing equipment to Medicare beneficiaries for reasons CMS cannot even begin to adequately explain.

I share these scenarios not to bemoan the situation, but to underscore the fact that sound health care policy can only be achieved with greater involvement of health care professionals like you. Regardless of your political affiliation or which health care solution you embrace, policy makers need to hear from you.

In the upcoming months, WMCMA will be working on hosting a health care forum comprised of ranking legislators from the Washington State Senate Health & Long-term Care committee and the House of Representatives Health Care & Wellness committee. This would be a wonderful opportunity to hear firsthand from these senior policy makers... and for them to hear from us!

Wendell Matas
President
Wheelchairs Northwest