Tag Archives: health care

Inslee on the deficit, Dederer on the yoga mat

Head over here for my coverage of Rep. Jay Inslee’s Monday night speech at a Rotary of Bainbridge Island meeting. He touched on several issues, including health care, the defense of the Clean Air Act and the ballooning federal deficit, an elephant-in-the-room issue he said Republicans and President Obama are avoiding.

And then drop by the Vashon Beachcomber. They have a story about Bainbridge author Claire Dederer’s visit to their island, and about the success of her new book, “Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses.” Its recent stint on the the New York Times’ Bestseller List pushed it into a second printing a few weeks after its initial release, according to the ‘Comber. There’s been plenty more written about Dederer’s book, like this and this.

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Islanders have calm, considerate discussion about health care reform

Sunday’s panel discussion on health care reform at the Bainbridge public library “was free of the furious outbursts seen at some town-hall events,” reports Derek Sheppard in yesterday’s Sun.

Instead, questions from the audience included “whether tort reform would significantly reduce costs, how care might be rationed, how good care can be encouraged instead of more tests, and how reform can pass with such a politically divided country and political interests corrupted by money,” Sheppard wrote.

For the full story, click here.

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The island’s largest medical center may be bigger than demand

A medical center planned for Madison Avenue may be a community health-care remedy that comes a few years too late.

At 27,700 square feet, the planned Island Medical Center would be the largest medical facility on Bainbridge. It’s an ambitious project aimed at meeting the service needs and desires of a growing island population that would prefer not to ride a ferry or cross a bridge to see doctors.

But some health-care professionals say the project, which was approved by the city last month and is under development by island-based MRJ Constructors, may have trouble filling its spacious new offices.

“They have a gigantic medical facility planned without a clear cut picture of who will occupy the facility,” said Bainbridge pediatrician Frederick Walters. “There’s a lot of questions about whether it’s needed, given the current health care players on the island.”

Walters was one of several doctors whose interest was piqued when the project was first announced three years ago. He and a handful of other doctors worked for the Virginia Mason Winslow clinic, currently the island’s largest medical facility, but hoped to break away and establish competing facilities elsewhere on the island.

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Island’s largest health care facility planned for Madison Ave.

The city approved plans for what will be the island’s largest medical center and one of its largest assisted living facilities. While local developers are touting the project as an answer to many of the island’s health and elder care needs, some residents are expressing concern about its size and scope.

The story below focuses on the buildings themselves and on the project’s first phase, which is likely to be the 47,700-square-foot assisted living facility.

I also talked with doctors and other folks about the planned medical building and the kinds of services the island needs, but there wasn’t room in this story for all that. Stay tuned for a story about the medical side. And in the meantime, drop me a line about where you see gaps in medical service on Bainbridge, and I’ll try to work it into the story.

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