An article in the Puget Sound Business Journal described plans for the Everett Clinic to merge with a national health care firm based in Colorado, DaVita Health Care Partners. The article notes that the Everett Clinic is undergoing the merger in order to allow it to aggressively expand the care that it now provides in Snohomish County. Their five-year expansion plan will include opening new locations in Snohomish County, expanding into King County, and doubling the number of health care providers from 500 to 1,000.

It is ironic that only ten years ago the medical industry in Washington sponsored Initiative I-330, which would have imposed draconian limits and restrictions on the rights of people to bring medical malpractice cases. A large part of the expressed rationale was that expanding malpractice cases were both driving up the costs of health care and were forcing doctors to quit or to leave the state. Studies had shown that the costs of malpractice cases were actually a very small percentage of health care costs, the number of claims had steadily declined, and doctors were not being forced out of practice.

New of the Everett Clinic planned expansion comes among numerous similar mergers and expansions of medical practices, with hospitals “buying up” many physician clinics to meet the demand for health care. Despite the fact that Washington voters turned down the malpractice initiative at the polls ten years ago, the number of doctors in Washington state is expanding, not contracting as the medical groups had contended.