12/26/2006: "At Last, MedVac Program Returns!"

ig_Medi_Vac_Helo-2 (82k image)
( Airlift Northwest photo)

MedVac flights are once again available to San Juan County residents at an affordable price. With the passage of an Air Ambulance Bill this year, Airlift Northwest is now allowed to offer a membership service that provides medical airlift to the mainland for an annual fee of $79.00. (Click for a copy of the membership Form) If the time should come when you need to be airlifted out of the county, Airlift Northwest would bill others, such as an insurance company or other sources, to cover the costs without any additional charges to the person transported.

A similar subscription service had once been available, but in 2002 the program was shot down by insurance company interests in the state who believed a subscription contract to provide medical transportation was a form of insurance, and convinced the State Insurance Commission to agree. ( previous story)

MedVac flights became prohibitive expensive has a result of the ruling, since the charges could only be charged to an individual, and not to a large membership pool of subscribers (hence the ruling that it was "insurance").

As a result of the loss of the service, groups of citizens, local politicians and the Medical Guilds of Orcas and SJ Island came together -due in large part by Orcas resident Joan Berkowitz- to pressure elected state officials for a change in the law that would allow the selling of subscriptions to future MedVac flights.

Berkowitz presented Sen. Harriet Spanel and David Quall a local petition containing 1800 signatures asking for the return of the flights, and Spanel and Quall responded to Berkowitz and the others by introducing a bill to make the selling of memberships in MedVac flights exempt "under certain conditions".

Garth Eimers, John Evans, and Randy Gaylord traveled to Olympia to testify as to the need for the legislation, and the bill was passed this year and sighed into law by the governor.