Action Taken: Amendments to WA Cares Fund Adopted

January 18th, 2022 Update

During last week’s executive session of Washington’s House Appropriations Committee, action was taken on both HB 1732 (to delay the program by 18-months) and HB 1733 (to add classes of exempt individuals).

Final passage of these amendments will likely happen before the end of the month -- they both require full House & Senate votes and the Governor’s signature.

Here’s an article from Friday in a local newspaper that summarizes the actions -- https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2022/jan/14/house-panel-votes-to-delay-washingtons-long-term-c/

• This amendment to HB 1732 was adopted. The amendment’s summary describes its intent as:
• Advances OSA’s audit of the Trust Program from 7/1/26 to 7/1/25
• Specifies that persons born before 1/1/68 are not eligible for benefits until 7/1/26
• Eliminates prohibition against DSHS accepting applications for benefits prior to 7/1/26
• Delays first rate setting adjustment from 1/1/24 until 1/1/26
• Delays Trust Commission’s annual reporting from 12/1/26 until 12/1/28, and admin expense reporting from 11/15/25 until 11/15/27

• This amendment to HB 1733 was adopted. The summary describes its intent as:
• Specifies that premium payments are the employee’s responsibility once conditions for exemption no longer apply; interest is due at a rate of 1% per month.
• Specifies that the prohibition against refunding premiums received prior to approval of exemption, or prior to notifying one’s employer of an exemption, do not apply to premiums assessed before start of Trust Program
• Specifies that a discontinued exemption no longer prohibits individuals from becoming qualified beneficiaries—but only for the new classes of exemptees
• Exempt LTC Insurance policy owners are still permanently banned from WA Cares.
• In other words, the exemption is automatically granted, but non-resident workers have to choose whether to apply for it. Here’s why they might not: under HB 1733, if you apply for the new “non-resident exemption,” the exemption you were granted due to owning an LTCI policy is forfeit. If you subsequently moved to WA, you’d be required to enroll in WA Cares within 90 days. This would not be the case if you stuck with your original LTCI exemption and later moved here.