This email came to me early in the session in 2010 and was incredibly touching. It’s easy to get involved in the details of the budget in a very technical way and forget the human needs we try to address. As a policy geek I’m perhaps more subject to this than other people.
Dear Rep. Hunter,
I just got done listening to the Governor’s speech and I feel for the first time in my life I must write to someone. I hope you are that someone. I am 53 and my daughter is 19. She has just finished her 1st quarter of college at Western Wash. Unversity. I have worked hard all my life. I have rasied my daughter alone. We are fortunate enough to have health insurance thru Basic Health. Now I hear that it is in jeopardy of being shut down. Please do not let this happen. I am to old to be without insurance and I cannot afford any other. They raised our premiums last year so they didn’t have to let people off the plan. I was hoping that we were safe. Please you must try and find a way to save Basic Health without letting people go. They are alot of people that depend on this insurance. Otherwise most of us would have to go to the ER and end up costing the state more money in the long run.
I am also asking that you find the money to contiune with the state need grants for higher education. Without that money my daughter will have to quit school and end up working some dead end job. She worked very hard in High School so she could go to college. She is the first in our family to ever go to college. She goes full time to school and works part time to have extra money for books and anything else she needs. I know that once she finish college she will do something good for this world, but she depends on the state grants for help. Please find some way to keep those also.
Thank you for reading this and I know that this will be a very diffcult session with some hard choices but education and health care to me are the two most important issues.
Thank you,
<Name withheld by Ross>