Cuts means daughter won’t get health care

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  Providence St. Peter Hospital has been in our community as long as we can remember. St. Peter births our babies, sets our children’s broken bones, heals our families, and plays a huge role in our community. Each of us can relate to the high quality of care we and our families and friends have received at St. Pete’s.

• Sequestration cuts hurt efforts to improve collaborative health care

  Sequestration cuts hurt efforts to improve collaborative health care

  What is "sequestration" and why should we care? Congress passed a law that said if we can't agree on how to raise revenue while making budgets cuts, then a set of "automatic," across-the-board cutbacks would be put in place. The idea was to make the cutbacks so harsh that everyone in Congress and the President would work hard to come to agreement. Unfortunately, no agreement has been reached, so on April 1, the cuts will go into effect.

  What does this mean to our state and local agencies? There are many organizations and programs that will feel these cuts deeply: K-12 education, education for children with disabilities, college work study jobs, Head Start, protection for clean air and clean water, military readiness, law enforcement and public safety, job search assistance, child care, vaccines for children, Violence Against Women grants, nutrition for seniors and public health cuts that will reduce admissions to substance abuse programs and result in fewer HIV tests. The impact is going to be significant

• Proposed state budget cuts jeopardize court services

  Proposed state budget cuts jeopardize court services

  Several years ago, judges statewide began urging the Legislature for more stable funding for the trial courts so that we could provide equal and accessible justice across our state. At that time, our great state of Washington was dead last – 50th out of 50 states – for the money the state spent on our trial courts. Even worse, the money the state spent on the entire judicial branch of government was only three-tenths of 1 percent of the state operating budget.

  Beginning in 2005, the Legislature deserves much credit for responsibly starting down the path to provide adequate and stable funding for the trial courts of our state. The state’s contribution to the trial courts rose from three-tenths to seven-tenths of the state operating budget. Even with that increase Washington was still 50th out of 50 states in its funding for trial courts – the courts that ordinary citizens rely on daily to handle felony criminal cases, dissolutions of marriage, disputes involving real property, businesses and personal injury

• Inslee injects some integrity into state budget

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  Gov. Jay Inslee’s budget priorities are a game-changer for a state long content to let government, and the essential services it funds, atrophy.

• Home care aides do life-affirming work

  Home care aides do life-affirming work

  While I appreciate Brad Shannon’s coverage of state employees’ contracts, I strongly object to “do chores” as his way of describing home care aides in his article on April 4. The care I provide for my client is professional, takes training, is life-affirming and is much, much more than chores. I help my client get out of bed, eat, bathe and go to the toilet.