The Medicaid expansion implemented under the Affordable Care Act added about 35,000 Clark County residents to the state health plan for low-income people.
What the expansion did not do, however, was increase the number of providers in the community offering primary care services to those patients.
The Health Care Authority — the state agency overseeing the Washington Apple Health Medicaid program — says Clark County already has a sufficient number of primary care providers to meet the need of Medicaid clients.
Providers and health plans paint a different picture.
Some provider groups have limited the number of Medicaid clients they will see, saying they can’t afford to treat them, given the low reimbursement rates from the state. Others are trying to expand to keep up with demand but are struggling to recruit providers.
Meanwhile, both of the county’s Medicaid managed care plans are working to expand their provider networks and meet client needs.
“I think we’ve, overall, managed to keep up,” said Karen Lee, president and chief executive officer of Columbia United Providers, a Vancouver-based Medicaid managed care plan. “That doesn’t mean it’s been easy. It’s been a really interesting juggling act.”
Chuck Chronis and his wife, Sandy, held on to Chronis’ probably a year or two longer than they should have, they said.
However, after operating the restaurant — which has had multiple locations — since 1968, the Chronises have retired. Friday was the last day their restaurant was open.
“It’s been a long ride,” said Sandy Chronis, 71.
“We’re going to take six months or so and just try to get back our health,” Chuck Chronis said, adding they have an RV they used to take to the Washington and Oregon coasts, but haven’t been able to use it for nine months due to his foot.
As for the location at the corner of Main and Ninth streets, no new tenant is scheduled to take it over just yet. The landlord, Dean Irvin of HG Industries in Vancouver, said he thinks a new tenant could be lined up within the next 30 days.
“Our hope is that it’s a similar venue, another restaurant, that moves in,” Irvin said. “Obviously, we wish Chuck was just staying. He’s an institution.”
One tradition at Chronis’ was a free Thanksgiving feast, which started back in 1982 as a collaboration between the Chronises and their friend Rich Melnick, now a judge with the state Court of Appeals. Melnick said that first year, they cooked 40 or 50 meals. The event has grown considerably, with the restaurant serving more than 1,000 meals in past years, including one where Melnick said they cooked 89 turkeys.
It wasn’t just the food that was popular at Chronis’ on Thanksgiving. The volunteer slots were also hot commodities. George Wick of Vancouver said he applied for years for a volunteer position, but didn’t get selected until two years ago.
After a week spent camping amid the heavy diesel fumes and frequent train horn blasts at Washougal’s busiest intersection, Mayor Sean Guard was ready to go home.
Guard set out on the afternoon of April 17 to spend a week in his 30-foot camping trailer at the intersection of Main and 32nd streets, where he would count every passing train during all hours of the day. He kept track of speeds, the types of trains, how often they passed and how long they tied up traffic.
All of it, Guard said, was information BNSF has been reluctant to share with the city. The details are of the utmost concern to many residents of Washougal, as the city continues to see an increase in oil train traffic. The trend will only pick up, of course, if the Port of Vancouver becomes home to the largest oil-by-rail terminal in the country, a plan Tesoro Corp. and Savage Cos. have had in the works for quite some time.
The task afforded Guard little more than an hour of sleep at a time throughout the week. Volunteers took over as he left the site just a handful of times to quickly run some errands or stop at home to shower.
Packing up camp on a chilly Friday morning, Guard looked back on the trip as a success. He found the information he came to gather and drew lots of attention to several big concerns about trains passing through Washougal.
In all, Guard said, 174 trains passed by his campsite during the week, averaging about 25 trains a day. His tally included 12 coal cars and nine oil trains.
Gus Melonas, a spokesman for BSNF, said Washougal sees an average of about 30 to 35 trains a day. Traffic flows peaked in 2006, when about 45 to 50 trains traveled through the city each day, and Melonas warns the rate could spike back up to that mark again this year.
When other developers were fleeing the housing market a half-decade ago out of financial desperation, Bob and Liz Rondeau were looking to get in.
Using proceeds from their sale of an educational software firm, the couple self-financed their first subdivision at a time when bank loans were scarce. Their new houses, in the Mount Vista area of Ridgefield, attracted buyers who dickered for lower prices.
Now, as their Waverly Homes development firm starts to build out the planned 155-house Hidden Glen subdivision in Hazel Dell, the Rondeaus don’t worry about attracting buyers or having to drop prices. These days, there is scarcely enough housing for sale in Clark County to meet demand.
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With the arrival of the spring homebuying season, veterans in the local home construction and real estate industries are reporting that the housing market is shifting from its slow, steady recovery during the cruel housing downturn into a strong seller’s market. Builders and brokers say they’re seeing more first-time buyers finally entering the market, plenty of people downsizing or moving up as their houses have regained value, and a stream of newcomers, arriving mostly from California and other Southwestern states.
The month of March was “by almost any measure, the best March since 2006,” said Mike Lamb, broker at Windermere Stellar Vancouver, in his monthly market report. “(In) some respects, it was even better than March 2006.”
The housing recovery has replenished employment in some of the industries decimated by the downturn that left Clark County with bankrupt builders, unfinished subdivisions and countless loan foreclosures. But neither housing prices nor industry-related jobs have returned to their peak levels of the past decade.
From 2005 to 2007, real estate offices in Clark County employed just over 550 agents and brokers, according to the state Employment Security Department. The most recent count, in 2014, found about 375 workers in those positions. Construction employment has dropped from 13,000 in both 2006 and 2007 to 9,900 in 2014, the state Employment Security Department reports.
The construction industry’s extreme financial distress during the recession is reflected in the membership history of the Building Industry Association of Clark County. The trade group hit its peak of just over 1,000 members with 23,660 employees in 2007. It hit bottom in 2011, when it had just half that number of businesses in its membership rolls, employing only 7,580 workers. Much of the loss came from its “associate” members, rather than full members that went out of business or had no money for memberships, said Avaly Scarpelli, the association’s executive director. The association now has 600 members with 11,480 employees, giving it a recovery rate that exceeds that of both state and national industry associations, she said.
Those that survived are seeing better times, Scarpelli said. It’s not all new construction, either. Clark County reported approving 51 residential remodel permits in March, up from 35 permits in March 2014.
“Our builders are extremely busy right now,” Scarpelli said.
Crouching about 10 feet from flames that race up kitchen cabinets in a blaze growing bigger and more threatening by the second, I feel every inch of my body prickle with heat.
The thick, heavy turnout gear is staving off most of the impact from the now-swelling blaze, but the temperature inside the gear is sweltering, and sweat puddles at the bottom of my face mask.
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Being so close to the fire — this spectacular, pulsing symphony of flames — I understand why they say fires roar. Crackles punctuate the steady rumble of the blaze as it furiously reaches across the ceiling. Embers fall around me.
“We want to get this one really ripping. That will be fun for the crew,” said Greg Payne, training captain for Camas-Washougal Fire Department.
Once flames have claimed nearly the entire ceiling, he uses his radio to dispatch firefighters to respond.
The fire isn’t a “real” fire. In fact, I’m the one who used a propane torch to get it started.
I’ve always been a thrill-seeker at heart, so when I got the opportunity for a front-row seat to action usually reserved for those with months of training, I took it.
It’s enough effort getting on the gear — boots, pants, jacket, air tank, mask and helmet — which I’m told weighs 45 pounds altogether. Using the air tank is similar to that used in scuba, without the buoyancy to help you with the weight on your shoulders.
