Dateline: Nov. 1, 2025. Gov. Matt Hasselbeck steps to the podium in the lobby of the Davenport Hotel. A crowd of more than 200 people greets him enthusiastically, along with local and statewide television cameras. He speaks.

"Hellloooooo, Washington! I am honored to be here with you today as we celebrate a proud moment for our state. With the release of the 2025 State Health Rankings, we can now officially declare that Washington is "the Healthiest State in the nation!" The crowd cheers.

"This was a vision declared by the Washington Health Foundation and its many friends in 2004. Back then, I was more concerned about winning football games. I didn't understand how important this was to the future of our state. But after we won the Super Bowl in 2012, I started to think beyond football and realized I wanted to make a difference in a different way.

"Once I learned about the Healthiest State Campaign, I realized that the Washington Health Foundation's path to becoming the Healthiest State was not to assign responsibility for our health to government or the medical care system, and say "go make us healthy." Instead, WHF wanted each one of us to take personal responsibility for our own health and to create collective action in our families and communities and with our government and medical care system to achieve better health for every Washingtonian.

"Typically, these types of successes get announced and celebrated at the Capitol in Olympia, or in Seattle. But it's no accident or political statement that we are gathered today in the fair city of Spokane. For while there is success to be counted across the entire state in achieving our No. 1 ranking, it has been the leadership from this side of our state that has truly blazed the action trail to becoming the Healthiest State in the nation.

The press conference concludes with a fruit and yogurt reception, where Linn Parish, of the Journal of Business, interviews Greg Vigdor, president & CEO of the Washington Health Foundation.

Linn: Good to see you, Greg. Congratulations. It must feel great to finally reach No. 1.

Greg: It certainly does. The greatest feeling is that we have truly improved the health of the people in this state.

Linn: What did the governor mean about the importance of making the announcement in Spokane?

Greg: There has been tremendous statewide involvement in our campaign. Everyone deserves to take a bow. But it really was Eastern Washington, and smaller rural communities in Western Washington, that embodied the change we sought in the health system.

We thought that the most important change needed was to fundamentally re-orient the medical care system so that it truly served the people. We called this idea—Health HoME. It was a concept designed to empower people in a way that forced the system to respond and change to people's needs. The initial idea troubled many in government and larger health systems. They were comfortable marketing health directly to people and creating the illusion of control, but far less inclined to actually empower people to control their own health. Eastern Washington showed a real thirst for changing health care to be about people first.

Linn: Can you give me an example of that?

Greg: I'll give you two. Our earliest test of the Health HoME idea was in the small community of Pomeroy, in Garfield County. Through the leadership of the local public hospital district, they sought to form Health HoMEs for all of the people living in that small farming town. Others followed.

The second example is from the small-business community in Spokane. In 2011, we launched the Healthiest State xChange (www.HealthiestWashingtonInsurance.com). Through the xChange, we became a health broker for individuals and small businesses. Our unique approach was to use the broker fees already built into the premium that most people pay for their health insurance, and use that money in a way that benefits the health of people across our state.

Instead of this money disappearing into the system, we used it to make people's existing health coverage work better for them, including through our Health HoME innovation. Hundreds of Spokane's small businesses joined us. Their support provided us funding and also stimulated the fast growth of our Healthiest State Business Network, which grew to become the leading advocate for health system redesign, cost control, and prevention—core issues for small businesses.

Linn: What were some of the other things that needed to happen to make us the Healthiest State?

Greg: The fundamental driver of the Healthiest State Campaign was to change the context around health. We believed that the only path to Winning the Future was by promoting greater personal responsibility and building broader social responsibility for our health—simultaneously. As we remember in the divisive health reform debate of 2010, so many wanted to say that it was one or the other. We knew that it needed to be both.

The Health HoME idea spoke to that need and stimulated real change within our health care delivery and financing system. The fact of the matter is that medical care only contributes about 8 percent to 10 percent of what makes us healthy as people. The other 90 percent is our own personal health behaviors and relationships, and broader "social determinants" like education, poverty, and other social and environmental factors.

There were efforts to address these matters through social policies like healthier foods in schools, sidewalks in communities to promote walking, and smoke-free workplaces.

Linn: I remember those issues being somewhat controversial. How were you able to get beyond that?

Greg: These were the types of collective responsibility policy changes that we supported—within limits. Our message was that working together to achieve better health didn't mean that we must work exclusively through government. That's where the Foundation stepped in and empowered people to actually act—instead of waiting for the data, the policy, or the right alignment of stars to get something done. We encouraged people to start by taking responsibility for their own health. And then, through small experiences—with local governments, nonprofits, or civic community groups—to understand the benefits of collective action. This formula was quickly embraced in the close-knit, community-oriented towns and cities of Eastern Washington.

Linn: Was all of this part of the national health reform that passed in 2010?

Greg: In retrospect, the biggest value of that legislation was showing us that we should take the leadership and actions to improve our health system, rather than continue to wait for political leadership, from either party, to do this.

Don't get me wrong. Government and political leaders became a huge part of our campaign, but they really followed the will of people who found our vision quest to be an important one. The people deserve the credit for making us the Healthiest State in the nation.

Linn: You speak so highly of Eastern Washington—when will you be coming back?

Greg: In a few weeks, for the Apple Cup in Pullman. As a Husky, we are looking to avenge that 35-0 pasting you gave us last year! (Hey, we can all dream, can't we?)