Kreidler on Supreme Court case and the state health-care exchange

Commissioner Kreidler sat down with TVW's Christina Salerno yesterday for a Q&A on health care reform, including this week's three days of arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court and the shape of the state's upcoming Health Benefits Exchange.

From the discussion:

What would change if they overturned the act?

People are directly benefiting from parts of the act today. People can stay on their parents’ insurance until 26, they can get preventive care with no deductibles — all of that would go away. (Attorney General) Rob McKenna’s lawsuit would undo all of that. The entire law may go down. We’d be back to square one, which is a system that’s failing us as a country and as a state. For many individuals, it was making a difference between life or death decisions.

State website access.wa.gov among the top nationwide

Well-deserved kudos to the folks who run Access.wa.gov, a Washington state website that helps make much of what government is doing available on one easy-to-navigate site.

The Sunshine Review, a nonprofit group focused on government accountability, recently awarded the site with an A+ grade, meaning that it's one of the most accessible state government sites in the country. From the group's report card on the site:

Elected officials are listed with contact information
Budgets are posted
Audits are posted
Contracts are posted in a searchable database
The site includes information on requesting public records
Lobbyist lists and reports are posted in a searchable database
etc.

(And a hat tip to The HDC Advance for the heads up on this.)