Exploring the high country on snowshoes E1
SUNDAY, 01.03.2016
Mergers signal major changes
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EVERETT, WASHINGTON
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BIG ISSUES: 2016
Leadership, influence County faces stormy seas with a new executive at the helm
Recent clinic sales and medical group consolidations provide plenty of regional proof that the health care industry is in flux. By Dan Catchpole Herald Writer
EVERETT — Monolithic forces seem to be reshaping health care industries in America: sweeping federal regulations, escalating drug costs, and an aging population demanding top-shelf care, among others. Faced with such daunting challenges, insurers and providers have often fallen back on an ageold business tactic — get bigger by gobbling up other companies. The consolidation trend has touched nearly every corner of the country, including Washington. Kaiser Permanente is trying to buy Seattle-based Group Health Cooperative, which has about 590,000 members in the state. Last month, the roughly 250 doctors who own the Everett Clinic, the state’s largest independent regional healthcare provider, agreed to sell to DaVita Healthcare Partners,
Dave Somers, minutes after being sworn in as Snohomish County Executive in Everett on December 23.
By Jerry Cornfield and Noah Haglund Herald writers
VERETT — It’s a new year and another new executive is settling into office in Snohomish County. Whether the arrival of Dave Somers ushers in an era of political stability, regional leadership and statewide influence for Snohomish County is one of the most intriguing questions for 2016. Somers is the third executive in four years for Washington’s third most-populous county, now topping 750,000 people. He inherits a political body suffering from a series of self-inflicted wounds — some of The series which Somers helped deliver during in his The first of four reports about tenure as a County Council member. political, economic When he walks into the executive’s sixthand social floor offices Monday, he’ll face pressing conchallenges facing Snohomish County. cerns such as a potential strike by more than Today: half the county’s employees, a legal fight Governance Monday: Economy with the Tulalip Tribes that could siphon millions of dollars from the county treasury Tuesday: Transportation and a political scrap over whether light rail Wednesday: will stop near the Boeing plant as it inches its Homelessness Follow this report on way toward downtown Everett.
BECK’S PLACE
Helping pets — and their homeless owners. Local, B1
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Snohomish County county leaders will have to figure out what to do about replacing an aging courthouse after they set aside plans for a new $162 million building in 2015.
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