Let me paint you a picture.

Imagine you’ve opened the only restaurant in your small town. It’s not easy. Finding help is tough, margins are tight, but with a lot of heart and hard work, you make it work. Folks love the place, and you’re proud to serve your community.

Then one day, the local government steps in with good intentions. They want to help folks who are struggling, so they partner with you to provide subsidized meals for lower-income families. It works! People get the meals they need, and you keep the lights on.

But over time, the funding runs dry. The state chips in for a while, but that well doesn’t last either. Suddenly, you’re required to give away a set number of free meals, on your dime. Your costs are rising, your staff is overworked, and now your profits are gone.

You try to adjust and cut back where you can. But then more rules come in: you’re told you have to serve everyone, and you’re also told how many staff you need on duty. Problem is, you can’t afford it. Eventually, you’re forced to close.

Sounds crazy, right?

But that’s exactly what’s happening to hospitals across Washington.

Hospitals are legally required to treat every patient who walks through their doors, no matter their insurance status or ability to pay. That’s the right thing to do. But when Medicaid only reimburses a fraction of the actual cost of care and when we keep piling on taxes, regulations, and staffing mandates, it creates a recipe for disaster.

Just look at Valley Medical Center. They’ve had to make painful cuts. Rural hospitals are hanging on by a thread. When they shut down or scale back, the impact is huge. People can’t get timely, life-saving care, even if they have private insurance.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about people. Whether you lean left, right, or somewhere in the middle, we all rely on hospitals to be there when a crisis hits. When the system starts to buckle, we all feel it.

Here’s what we need to do, and we need to do it together; Republicans, Democrats, and everyone in between:

• Make Medicaid payments fair. Right now, hospitals lose money on every Medicaid patient they treat. That’s not sustainable.

• Take a hard look at staffing and hiring rules. We need to support—not strangle—our rural hospitals’ ability to hire doctors and nurses.

• Stop taxing our hospitals into the ground. We can’t underfund care on one hand and raise costs on the other.

Hospitals aren’t just buildings. They’re lifelines. And if we want them to be there when we need them most, we have to act now.

Let’s not wait until more hospitals close. Let’s come together and fix this before it’s too late.

Yours in service,

Senator Ron Muzzall
10th Legislative District