Who Should Pay for the City's Sick?
A legal dispute over whether the City of Seattle or King County is responsible for the medical care of the indigent.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Prosecuting Attorney Miller, in response to a request from the county commissioners for an opinion as to the liability of the county for the support of the indigent sick, has written an opinion in which he holds that the county, and not the city, is responsible for their care. The exceptions to the rule, he says, are city prisoners and those having contagious diseases. The opinion states that the law relative to the support of the poor was apparently the intention of the legislature to charge the county with the maintenance of the poor and indigent, except where incorporated cities have by charter specifically and voluntarily assumed the control and support of these persons. The charter of Seattle does not contain a specific enough provision to shift this burden, thus leaving the county to bear the cost for both the county at large and the incorporated city. Corporation Counsel Donworth concurred, noting that while the city acts out of humanitarian motives to pay for such care, it is legally the duty of the county.
“While this may be considered an unjust burden upon the county, there is no mode of relieving that burden embodied in the statutes.”
The struggle over whether a municipality or county is responsible for public health and social safety nets remains a defining tension in Pacific Northwest governance. Today’s debates over funding for homelessness and public health services often mirror this exact 1893 argument about which level of government holds the purse strings for the vulnerable.
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