Governor Bob Ferguson signed an executive order Thursday, September 3, directing state agencies to expand outreach and tracking to mitigate harm to Apple Health, Washington’s Medicaid program, from cuts under H.R. 1, which he called “the big bad betrayal bill.”
Hosted by International Community Health Services in Seattle’s Chinatown International District, the order creates the HR1 Continuous Medicaid Response Committee, directing a statewide public awareness campaign and ordering the Department of Health to build a new data system to track who is losing coverage. Separately, the state has already been building an automated verification hub that uses existing data to confirm eligibility automatically, reducing how much paperwork people must submit to keep their coverage.
H.R. 1 cuts more than $1.3 trillion in health care and food assistance nationwide, Ferguson said. In Washington, it removes Apple Health from an estimated 14,000 lawfully present immigrants, starting October 1. Work requirements are imposed on more than 600,000 recipients starting January 1. “It is thinly veiled to kick people off Medicaid, to make the system as difficult as possible to navigate,” Ferguson said.
State outreach has already cut the immigrant coverage loss number to 11,000, and the new verification system is expected to help an estimated 400,000 individuals in Washington keep coverage under the work requirements. Despite this, the state projects more than 200,000 people will lose Apple Health by 2027; most of them remain eligible, Ferguson said. Implementing the changes has cost the state nearly $100 million; fully offsetting them would cost roughly $3.2 billion every two years.
Health Care Authority Director Ryan Moran said, “Our approach has three parts. The first is we are reaching out to people directly. The second, we are working with trusted community partners. And the second and the third, as the governor noted, we are building technology that reduces paperwork and keeps people covered automatically.”
ICHS CEO Kelli Nomura said the strain is already visible: “Nearly 55% of ICHS patients rely on Apple Health.”
Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer said private coverage is affected too, with individual plan enrollment down 13% for 2026. “It’s not health care that needs to stop. It’s Trump’s reckless behavior that needs to stop,” said UFCW 3000 President Faye Gunther.
“Really ticks me off that we’re here,” Ferguson said. “It’s morally bankrupt what Congress and the president have done.”
