February 17, 2025
The First Major Deadlines are in View
The legislative process is inherently designed to weed out bills rather than pass them. Legislative cutoff dates, deadlines embedded in the legislative calendar, often mark moments of disappointment as much as triumph, determining which proposals move forward and which meet their end. With the February 21 deadline for bills to pass out of policy committees fast approaching, bills that are not scheduled for a committee vote this week face very little chance of advancing. Policies for worker protection, housing, and education have dominated the headlines, including bills to raise the minimum wage, regulate self-service checkout stations at grocery stores, raise the cap on property taxes, regulate rent increases, among others.
Following this Friday’s cutoff for policy committees, the following Friday marks the deadline to pass bill out of fiscal committees, except those deemed “necessary to implement the budget.” We’ll provide a comprehensive update on all our priorities following these deadlines.
Life Science Washington Priorities
The full view of how Life Science Washington’s priorities fare in this first culling of bills is still coming into focus, but we anticipate both achievements and challenges in a tough budget session.
Some good news includes that Life Science Washington, BIO, and AWHP have agreed on changes to HB 1725 and its Senate companion, SB 5594, regarding biosimilar medications. These bills add biosimilars to health insurer and prescription drug utilization management formularies. They also allow pharmacists to substitute a biosimilar or interchangeable biological product for a brand name drug. The agreed-upon amendments clarify that a pharmacist may only substitute an interchangeable biological product for a brand name product. As originally introduced, a pharmacist would have been able to substitute a non-interchangeable biosimilar without having to obtain authorization from the prescriber. Amendments also clarify that an insurer can require a patient to try a biosimilar prior to providing coverage for the equivalent branded drug. The Senate version is scheduled for a committee vote ahead of this week’s deadline.
Additionally, SB 5400, a bill to aid local journalism, would have taken funds from the workforce development investment account, which LSW members pay into, to help support local newspapers. In committee the bill was amended to change the source of funding to a tax on social network sites and internet search portals. The bill now faces the fiscal committee deadline to continue advancing.
Unfortunately, HB 1062, the biomarker testing coverage bill, and HB 1444, the genome sequencing coverage bill, are unlikely to move out of committee this session. Despite pressure on the Health Care & Wellness Chair to advance biomarker testing coverage, as well as efforts to prepare potential committee amendments to clarify and narrow the scope while maintaining disease-agnostic coverage, the bill faced significant obstacles. This session’s overarching theme—that any bill with a financial cost had little chance of passing—ultimately prevented its advancement. Rep. Thai indicated that she will be working with the Health Care Authority to “unbundle” some codes so that genome sequencing will be covered.
Preparing for a Grim Budget
While all this committee action is going on, budget writers in both the House and Senate are reviewing state funding and legislators’ requests for additional programs. The budget deficit is getting more real every day. This week, we learned that Governor Inslee’s “book one” budget (the all-cuts budget that was never made public) contained over $7B worth of cuts to health care, human services, higher education, long-term care, and developmental disabilities.
We also expect to see the results of Governor Ferguson’s 6% budget reduction exercise sometime next week. The results will be sobering. Budget writers are also waiting for a March revenue forecast that may show some growth in revenue. They are also considering if taxes will be needed to balance the budget and what those taxes should be.
Have questions, comments, or concerns about these bills or any other pending legislation? Get in touch with LSW’s Public Affairs Manager, Curtis Knapp.