STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1586

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.C.R. No. 33

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Health and Human Services, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 33 entitled:

"SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION REQUESTING THE TAX REVIEW COMMISSION TO IDENTIFY POSSIBLE MEANS BY WHICH THE HAWAII LONG-TERM CARE FINANCING PROGRAM CAN BE IMPLEMENTED,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to request the Tax Review Commission to identify possible means by which the Hawaii Long-Term Care Financing Program can be implemented.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Executive Office on Aging and one individual.

Your Committee finds that the State's aging population is expected to increase significantly, with projections that one in four residents will be sixty-five years or older by 2035, and as people age, they will need additional health care services to help them with activities of daily living. Your Committee further finds that because increasing numbers of the State's residents will need long-term care services, there is a compelling need to create an affordable method of financing those services. Your Committee notes that Act 245, Session Laws of Hawaii 2002 (Act 245) established the Hawaii Long-Term Care Financing Program (LTC Financing Program) to provide universal and affordable long‑term care for all eligible State residents regardless of income. However, Act 245, codified at chapter 346C, Hawaii Revised Statutes, only established a framework for the LTC Financing Program and therefore, the details of the program, including how to pay for it, remain undetermined. Accordingly, this measure initiates the analysis of possible implementations of the Hawaii Long-Term Care Financing Program as an affordable financing mechanism for long-term care services for the State's increasing elderly population.

Your Committee has amended this measure by inserting language to request the Tax Review Commission to consider the findings listed in Financing Long Term Care: A Report to the Hawaii State Legislature, Executive Office on Aging, Office of the Governor, July 1991, in their identification of possible means by which the Hawaii Long-Term Care Financing Program can be implemented.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Health and Human Services that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 33, as amended herein, and recommends its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.C.R. No. 33, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Health and Human Services,

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JOY A. SAN BUENAVENTURA, Chair