Lots of people have questions about health care reform. One of the most active conversations on the topic is among senior citizens. What’s changing about the so-called “donut hole” for prescription drug benefits? Is Medicare taking the brunt of the cuts to fund the health care reform law? How is the Medicare Advantage plan – run through private health insurance companies – being cut back? About a hundred senior citizens are about to join me at an AARP presentation in Vancouver to try to get those answers. We’ll be listening in to hear what seniors are most concerned about.

I was tipped off about attending this event, after interviewing the state’s AARP advocacy director, Ingrid McDonald. She told me she’s working hard to debunk a lot myths about changes to Medicare. And while Medicare provides federal health insurance coverage to Americans ages 65 and older, McDonald says people in the 50-64 age range are among the most vulnerable in our current health care system. She’s also addressing what the law means for their insurance coverage.

We’ll be passing on the answers to you in The Impact’s special report on health care reform, which will air in September. Tune in. In the meantime, if you have questions relating to seniors or anyone else affected by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, you can check out the concise information on AARP’s website here.

Tags: health care reform, Medicare, The Impact

On the last day of our eastern & central Washington tour, we visited a small business in Spokane. Janine Vaughn owns Revival Lighting – a specialty lighting store with ten employees. Janine has provided insurance to her workers since she started the company with two partners nearly 12 years ago. Every December she says she spends 40 hours researching insurance plans in an effort to provide the best coverage at the lowest cost, but she’s consistently watched her rates increase and benefits decrease. Right now, she spends about $23,000 per year to insure her 10 workers.

We talk with Janine about how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act addresses concerns of small businesses, specifically tax credits and the yet-to-be-launched small business insurance exchange. You’ll hear how she envisions it impacting her business and where she thinks the law falls short.

We’re heading back from Spokane today, and next week, we’ll be focusing on Medicare, talking with AARP experts and seniors concerned about how their coverage will and could change. I’ll continue posting blogs about what I learn in my travels. You can watch for The Impact special report on health care reform in September on TVW.

Tags: health care reform, The Impact

While The Impact is on hiatus, I’m working on a special report on national health care reform and what it means for Washingtonians. We’re based out of Olympia, which means we spend a lot of time covering the state’s main population zone – the Puget Sound area. However, some of the biggest health care issues are in rural areas – central and eastern Washington.

To address health care access problems, there are a lot of programs already underway in Yakima, in particular. These programs will be expanded under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Obama in March. One such program is Yakima Neighborhood Health Services – what’s known as a community health center. A demonstration project, launched 45 years ago, created the country’s first two community health centers – one in Massachusetts and one in Mississippi. More than four decades later, community health centers serve 20 million people across the country.

At YNHS, the health services are vast and comprehensive: pediatric, maternity, dental, mental health, pharmaceutical, and vision. Its patients, too, are diverse – Spanish speakers, low-income, Medicaid users, the uninsured. One consistency is that anyone is welcome. The national health care reform law includes $11 billion to expand community health centers like YNHS, in order to address the skyrocketing demand that will come from insuring millions more people. We talk with one of its long-time patients – 29-year-old Leticia Garcia, a mother of 5, who was visiting the clinic with a fever, stomach virus and anxiety-related issues. We learn about her care under the community health center model.

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Tags: health care reform, The Impact

Democrats rallied behind candidates and top policy issues at their weekend convention in Clark County.  How many democrats?  700.  Compare that to the Republican convention two weeks earlier, when there were 1,200 delegates.  Rep. Sam Hunt, chair of the House Democratic Campaign Committee, joins me on set to talk about the party’s plan for energizing their voters in the face of a surging Republican party. Plus, the party’s plans for keeping Sen. Patty Murray in office.

In our final segment, you’ll meet the mother of “Fathead.”  Yes, she calls him that name too.  He’s a suspected  gang member in Auburn – the type of person that community corrections officers (CCO) are working to identify and track better.  We ride along with a CCO, as she visits offenders under supervision and looks for signs of gang activity.  During our first stop, we go inside Fathead’s house and talk with his mother about what he’s doing to stay out of trouble.  We also learn about how the Department of Corrections is streamlining a system for preventing gang violence.

You can catch The Impact Thursday nights at 7 p.m. & 10 p.m. on TVW and on Friday nights at 7 p.m. on KBTC.

Tags: Democratic convention, gang violence, The Impact

Following their largest political convention turnout in a non-presidential election year, Washington State Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser joins me on set to debrief the candidates and issues heading into the August primary and November election.  Hear his thoughts on the influence of the Tea party, the race to unseat Sen. Patty Murray, and policy issues ranging from health care to energy.

In tonight’s show, we also tell you about some major traffic interferences on Snoqualmie Pass this summer.  For the latest construction updates, here’s a link to the WSDOT website.

You may have caught the previous blog post on high school exam results.  But to see my one-on-one interview with Superintendent Randy Dorn about some critical testing challenges ahead, you’ll have to watch The Impact.   The show airs every Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on TVW and on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. on KBTC.

Tags: high school exam results, republican party, The Impact

You’ve had two years to get used to a ban on driving and talking or texting on your cell phone. Yes, state troopers say the ban has been effect for that entire period of  time.  However, until this coming Thursday it’s only been a secondary offense.  That means police had to pull you over for another infraction like speeding before citing you for breaking the cell phone law.  Starting on June 10th, officers can pull you over for that offense alone and state police say they’re not issuing any warnings.  So we take a look at the rules of the road.  For instance, can you use speaker phone? Can you finish your text when stopped at a red light?  And, in which cases does the law NOT apply? One issue we didn’t get to in our story:  can you pull over to use your cell phone?  Troopers say it’s illegal to stop on the side of the freeway to chat or text. You won’t get a ticket for the cell phone ban, but you will be ticketed for illegally stopping.

In our second featured piece, we take a look at the $9 million doppler radar acquistion for the coast. There’s a blind spot for forecasters watching for storms coming on shore, which prevents them from honing their weather warnings.  The call for a radar grew louder after the 2007 flooding and windstorm that devastated the coast.  The National Weather Service has found one from the Air Force that it can retrofit and update to new standards.  It is expected to be in place in September of 2011 – a year earlier than originally planned. We talk with the Weather Service about how the new tool will change forecasting for Washington.

Watch The Impact Wednesday nights at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on TVW and on Friday night at 7:00 p.m. on KBTC.

Tags: cell phone, doppler radar, texting, The Impact

Find out what’s candy and what’s not under the new state law — and how that will affect what you pay:

And on Inside Olympia, Austin Jenkins interviewed business groups about their legislative priorities — and the November election:

Tags: Business, candy, elections, Inside Olympia, tax, The Impact, TVW

Are you confused about the candy tax? So are we.  I put grocery shoppers to the test to see if they could figure out what’s considered candy under the new law (i.e. Snickers bars) and what’s not (i.e. licorice).  At the time, the Department of Revenue had Milky Way bars listed as an exempt product.  Now, I’m told it’s not exempt.  We talk with a revenue spokesperson to sort out the confusion and learn more about the difficulty of implementing this tax for the state, retailers and customers.

We also take a look at the pledge that low-income middle schoolers can make to guarantee their full scholarship to college. All they have to do is maintain a 2.0 GPA and stay out of trouble.  In these tough budget times, does the state really have the money to pay for it? June 30th is the deadline for 8th graders to apply.  To learn more about it, you can go to the Higher Education Coordinating Board’s website here.  Or, of course, watch The Impact tonight at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on TVW or on our PBS affliate, KBTC, on Friday at 7:00 p.m.

Tags: candy tax, scholarships, The Impact

And here’s tonight’s Inside Olympia with Austin Jenkins. He talks to state schools superintendent Randy Dorn about K-12 education:

Tags: education, Inside Olympia, The Impact, TVW

Find out the latest on high-speed rail — Is it worth the $590 million price tag? — the latest on whether Gov. Gregoire will soon be Solicitor General Gregoire and the latest from Arun Raha on the state’s revenue on this week’s edition of The Impact:

Tags: Budget, Gregoire, High speed rail, revenue, The Impact