Three state legislature committees have approved bills that could lead to the creation of a government-run long-term care insurance (LTCI) program in Hawaii.
Members of the Hawaii state Senate Human Services Committee have voted 3-0, with one excused absence, to support setting up a task force that would study the idea of setting up a mandatory, public long-term care insurance (LTCI) program that might pay a small daily amount and supplement existing public and private long-term care (LTC) programs.
Sen. Suzanne Chun-Oakland, D-Sand Island, the lead sponsor of the bill, S.B. 2321, is the chair of the Senate Human Services Committee.
In the House, members of the Health Committee and members of the Human Services Committee have advanced an amended version of the bill, H.B. 2696, that was introduced by Rep. Della Au Belatti, D-Tantalus.
A Hawaii LTC commission has concluded that "only a minority of Americans will ever have private long-term care insurance, even in an optimistic economic environment," but the commission also found little support for the kind of mandatory, universal LTCI programs operating in countries such as Japan and the Netherlands, according to the bill preamble.
The task force would try to determine whether setting up a limited, mandatory, public LTCI program would be feasible and whether the program would be supported by the public, according to the preamble.
At a recent hearing organized by the Senate, Eldon Wegner of the Policy Advisory Board for Elder Affairs spoke in favor of the bill.
Barbara Kim Stanton, state director of AARP Hawaii, said AARP would like to lawmakers have an existing state agency study the concept, rather than creating a new LTCI program task force.
Cynthia Takenaka, executive director of NAIFA Hawaii, said even conducting an actuarial study of the concept would take significant funding.
Takenaka noted that a 2010 LTC survey found that 80% of the Hawaiian residents who participated said they support the idea of creating tax incentives for the purchase of private LTCI coverage.
Linda Posto, a Honolulu LTCI advisor, testified that only 17% of the participants in a 2011 Hawaii LTC survey said they would have enrolled in a voluntary federal LTC benefits program, and that only 20% said enrollment in an LTC benefits program should be mandatory.
Just 29% of the survey participants supported the idea of increasing taxes to pay for improved LTC services, Posto said.
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