Report Title:

Long-term Care Financing Plan; Special Committee

RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, the need for and the cost of long-term care affects virtually every segment of society, the future is also ours to create as manageable or as cause for despair; and

WHEREAS, the elderly population of the State of Hawaii will number one out of every four persons by 2020 and is among the top three states’ fastest growing older adult populations in the United States with those over age eighty-five, the fastest growing segment of the Hawaii state population; and

WHEREAS, disabled younger persons are also increasing in number; and these populations need assistance to help them with basic long-term care needs which are very costly to purchase and not readily available; and

WHEREAS, eight out of ten American families are directly affected by the financial burden of paying for long-term care services and the cost of long-term care is increasing at a far higher rate than family income; and

WHEREAS, the human dimensions of the inability to afford long-term care and the escalating costs of care for a mushrooming elderly population suggest that things cannot continue as they are because:

WHEREAS, it is estimated that over thirty thousand older adults residing in the community in Hawaii, have mobility or self care limitations and of these eighty-two per cent earn less than $20,000 per year and three per cent earn less than $10,000 per year or have no income at all; and

WHEREAS, the State is paying well over $100,000,000 per year now out of general fund revenues for long-term care and projections are that this number will double over the next ten years if nothing is done now to lower the rate of increase in these costs to the State and to pursue lower cost alternatives, and the Hawaii Health Systems Corporation which maintains over seven hundred long-term care beds in the State lost over $11,500,000 last fiscal year in general revenue funds in its provision of long-term care; and

WHEREAS, current methods of financing long-term care which are predominately Medicaid, private insurance, and personal assets, have severe limitations and leave out the largest group of those in need, namely those in the so-called "gap group" who do not qualify for Medicaid, yet cannot afford the high costs of purchasing care; and

WHEREAS, the long-term care challenge is inescapable, the cost of doing nothing will result in grave outcomes for Hawaii’s families and for the State of Hawaii; and the dilemma of how best to finance long-term care costs can no longer be ignored because of the consequences we all face unless the State adopts a strategy for financing long-term care which is affordable, equitably protective, and reliable; and

WHEREAS, there is growing public awareness about the costs of long-term care that has resulted in a heightened interest in new sources of revenue; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2001, the House of Representatives concurring, that the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall appoint a special committee consisting of members of the legislature, one of which shall be appointed as the chair or co-chair, private organizations, and appropriate state officials to develop and implement a plan for a dedicated source of revenue that will:

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the special committee shall include in its deliberations and findings a review of pertinent reports conducted under legislative mandate related to the issue of long-term care financing; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the findings and recommendations of the special committee shall be transmitted to the Legislature no later than twenty days before the convening of the Regular Session of 2002; and