Day of Activism - continued.....

During our Day of Activism in Olympia last week, we spoke to legislators about the need to keep WSHIP, the state's high risk pool, open as long as possible.  We needed a study to take place before we could be sure that people with MS who are on a WSHIP plan, and find out more about alternatives before we closed the plan. Legislators were very interested in hearing what we had to say and the changes made to Senate Bill 5449 reflect many of our concerns. The study will now come back to us before WSHIP is scheduled to close down and we'll be able to make sure that people with MS have their needs met before the plan goes away. The bill was voted out of the Senate yesterday on a 49-0 vote and during the floor debate, we even heard from Senator Karen Keiser how valuable the program is to people living with MS.

The bill now goes on to the House for consideration. We'll be watching the bill closely to make sure the needs of people living with MS are understood by legislators. Because of the more than 60 MS Activists who came to Olympia last week and had individual conversations with their legislators, that task is much, much easier.