Report Title:
Long-Term Care; Insurance; Elderly, Disabled
Description:
Establishes a long-term care insurance premium programs.
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THE SENATE |
S.B. NO. |
2437 |
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TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2006 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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A BILL FOR AN ACT
RELATING TO LONG-TERM CARE INSURANCE PREMIUM.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:
SECTION 1. The legislature finds that the approach to long-term care to help Hawaii's elderly and disabled should be prompted by compassion and caring, although the problem is inextricably one of economics. Medicaid, medicare, long-term care insurance, and personal assets are insufficient or inaccessible to most individuals. Institutional care is viewed by many as too costly, too consumptive of scarce public dollars, confining, and uncaring.
National polls have shown that families are willing to pay their fair share, even if it means paying a premium because long-term care is a family problem, does not go away, and affects the young and the old. Families are willing to pay a little now rather than a whole lot more later.
The legislature also finds that a consumer-funded and directed social long-term care insurance plan:
(1) Assures a floor of income protection upon retirement to meet a societal need to see that elders do not live and die in poverty;
(2) Benefits the majority of the adult population;
(3) Bridges the gap between the very poor and those who are able to cover the cost of their own long-term care;
(4) Provides long-term care benefits for younger adults who may require but not qualify for private long-term care insurance;
(5) Helps families in the "sandwich generation" who bear the long-term care cost of their parents and grandparents; and
(6) Provides some assured, even if modest, level of care for the greatest number of citizens.
The purpose of this Act is to establish a universal and affordable system for long-term care that provides up-front financial assistance to support frail persons who wish to remain in their own homes.
SECTION 2. There is established a long-term care insurance premium program to provide home care services.
The department of human services shall impose a monthly long-term care premium of $10, to be collected by the department of taxation from each person who is aged twenty-five to ninety-eight and is a regular employee or self-employed, and deposited into the Hawaii long-term care benefits fund. The premium shall be increased by $.50 - $1 a month in the years 2006 through 2010. Thereafter, the amount may be increased if requested by the board of trustees, who is to administer the program, and approved by the legislature.
Individuals who are fully vested after ten years shall receive full benefit payments for home care services. Those partially vested shall receive proportional benefits. Payments shall begin on July 1, 2009, thirty days after approval of the written certification from a physician or advanced practice registered nurse assigned by the board of trustees that the person needs one or more long-term care services.
To be eligible, a vested individual must need help with two or more activities of daily living or have Alzheimer's disease or dementia. The benefit payment shall be $70 a day, up to a cumulative three hundred sixty-five days, for home care services. Payments shall be primary to medicaid and private insurance payments but shall not be made when a person is receiving medicare benefits for long-term care.
SECTION 3. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $3,000,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2006-2007, to implement and fund the long-term care insurance premium plan established under this Act.
The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of human resources for the purposes of this Act.
SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2006.
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INTRODUCED BY: |
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