As Bothell health-care providers, we are very concerned about what budget cuts are doing to our state’s health-care system. While you may not have felt the impact yet, your neighbors have. Soon we will all experience the impact if the Legislature ignores the governor’s call to include new revenue to solve the state budget deficit.

An all-cuts budget will dismantle our primary health-care safety net, by eliminating Disability Lifeline, a vital program for people who are temporarily disabled, and Basic Health, which gives health coverage to working families.

Instead of getting preventive care at their local community health center, like HealthPoint where we work, people who have lost their coverage will wait until they are very ill and go to the ER.  What could have been a $150 primary-care visit becomes a $16,000 inpatient hospital stay.  Hospitals will need to pass on these costs, which may result in very high insurance premiums by insurers.

More cuts to health care will take a devastating toll on real people. We see an average of 70 patients every day at HealthPoint Bothell. Other clinics across the state face the same wearisome scenario.

For people like “Karen D.,” who has always worked, but does not receive insurance from her employer, regular access to her providers and medication sustains normality and it sustains her life.  She relies on the affordable care at HealthPoint to help keep her blood pressure under control and prevent hospitalization.

We ask you to join us in urging our legislators to give voters a chance to save these programs and maintain our healthy communities.

Karen Rongren, Advanced registered nurse practitioner

Xiomara Munoz, Doctor of osteopathic medicine