Restricting the use of health care premiums for political lobbying.

 S-0518.1

SENATE BILL 5243

State of Washington

69th Legislature

2025 Regular Session

By Senators Hasegawa, Shewmake, and Trudeau

Read first time 01/14/25. Referred to Committee on State Government, Tribal Affairs & Elections.

AN ACT Relating to restricting the use of health care premiums for political lobbying; adding a new chapter to Title 29B RCW; and prescribing penalties.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that:

(1) During the COVID-19 pandemic spanning multiple years many persons, companies, and governments lost huge sums of income and reserves through job loss, loss of employees, added expenses, and interruptions in their ability to conduct their trade for extended periods. In contrast, many health insurance companies reported enormous profits during this time and used those profits to take advantage of stock buybacks and increase CEO and executive pay, and rather than passing on those profits to their policyholders in the form of reduced premiums and increased benefits they instead continued to lobby elected officials and governments for increases in insurance premium rates.