Washington state’s charity care rules require hospitals to provide non-emergency charity care without regard to residency. It’s a recent change to decades-old policy limiting non-emergency charity care to state residents. It also showed that our overly expansive requirement for charity care is being taken advantage of — in a variety of ways. Charity care increases the cost of care, and that cost is often passed on to consumers who pay for services or who are insured. We all agree health care costs are burdensome, and we should also all agree that cost-containment is needed, not more cost-shifting.