“Insurers Try to Avoid Collision With State LTCI Program”

“Insurers Try to Avoid Collision With State LTCI Program,” by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor


Quote:  “Private insurers are deciding to opt out of dancing with Washington state’s new WA Cares Fund universal long-term care (LTC) benefits program. The carriers say they want to make sure Washington state residents aren’t simply buying private coverage to avoid paying a new 0.58% payroll tax that’s supposed to cover the cost of the public LTC benefits program. The new tax is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2022. Residents can opt out of the public program, and the tax, if they can show they have had private coverage in force before Nov. 1, 2021, under current program rules. … Stephen Moses, president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform— a Seattle-based organization that promotes efforts to protect LTCI coverage from being crowded out by public LTC benefits programs, said in another commentary that the Washington state program belongs in ‘the government LTC insurance Hall of Shame,’ along with the Medicaid nursing home benefits program and a program set up for public employees in California. ‘The drafters of the WA Cares Fund should go back to the drawing board before they ruin the LTC insurance market in Washington state entirely,’ Moses said.”

LTC Comment, Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform:

Source for those Moses quotes is “LTC Bullet: The WA Cares Fund Gets a Bad Wrap,” published Friday, June 18, 2021.