https://www.forbes.com/sites/howardglec ... 135b2cdcab

It is not universal. Only Washington residents age 18 or older who have paid the payroll tax for either 10 years without interruption of five consecutive years, or three of the last six years, and who work at least 500 hours a year, are eligible. Self-employed people may choose to participate but do not have to. The work requirement effectively exempts from the program current retirees, children with disabilities, and adults with disabilities who work less than about 10 hours a week [and illegals?]. However, it calls for a study of whether to include those who become disabled before they are 18.

The program needs to be sustainable over the long run without general fund revenues. The tax/premium goes into a state trust fund [like SS, does it stay there?, are there IOUs?]. However, lawmakers cannot dip into the fund for other purposes without notifying participants [notify only, no permission needed]. And the state is barred from using money from outside the fund to pay benefits [benefits can run out]. An independent commission [like 9/11 commission?] and the state actuary must regularly certify that the program is solvent. If it is not, the state must cut benefits [to tax paying citizens].

>>>>>>>>>>>>

Like Social Security, if it's such as great idea, why can't people purchase it themselves and not have the state administer it?

Make people dependent, indoctrinate younger people that it's the state's responsibility to watch out for them, what a great idea!

So the state runs an insurance agency like the private sector. Can the state run a grocery store? Why Not? We all need food!

If all this shit is so great, we should just give every single dollar of any type of income to the state in return for food, shelter, care......THAT system would be excellent.

From Rocket Scott's link too:

"If you are an adult employee, there is only one way to permanently opt-out of the LTSS Trust Program and its new career-spanning payroll tax: you must have purchased long-term care insurance before the end of July, 2021"

I don’t have any info. I was driving to Puyallup Saturday morning and heard it on the radio. They were talking about this new state required tax and getting long term care insurance. It could be bad info or I could be getting old and remembered it wrong.

Pretty soon the state is going to have to run it. They've run several companies out of the state because of regulations and inadequate medicare reimbursements

'Heartbreaking': Pandemic forces Burlington nursing home to close, leaving residents in limbo
https://www.king5.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/washington-state-long-term-care-closures-covid-19-pandemic/281-a35b8bf8-4635-45f6-a1e9-814d082ebfda

Sounds like an unconstitutional tax to me. Our State Supreme Court has made it clear income is property and must be all taxed at a flat level. It would be like getting to pay less property tax if you buy flood insurance than if you don't.

What about those who have VA benefits?

This is nothing but a tax disguised as something it's not. In all reality it's a tax to bail out the state from their medicaid shortfall. Since I have less than 9 years to go as a W2 it's a Fn Jay Inslee feel good tax that most in my situation will not ever get any benefit from. Kinda like RTA in Pierce county. It's also unfair tax as if you pay in $50 per year you get the same benefit as someone who pays into it $1200 per year. At least with SSI it's based on years paid in and income. BUT hey, it's a great way for the state to raise funds thru yet another rammed through cost for another worthless program. Did you see how much they want to spend just to set up this program?

Looks like the extension for LTC policy to be in place is now Nov 1,2021. My policy for the exemption is only $680 per year and I plan to go that route as I get double the coverage for the same cost and I can drop it at some point in the future or take it with me to another state. You can't back out of the WA LTCA (unless you get exempt) after it's in place so that .58 will go up after 2023. It's actually not horrible if you have 10-15 years to work yet, have lower W2 income, have insurability issues and don't plan to move out of state.

So, has anyone gotten a plan in order to exempt out of this garbage?

If so, who did you go with and how much did it cost?

Few guys are work have gotten quotes for between $500-$1000 per year.

Lawmakers know lots of people will opt out, which means the system will be underfunded. They will then make it a tax that employers pay for all employees and get it done because by then it will be an "emergency". They will arrive at what they wanted in the first place, another tax on employers.

It's pretty astonishing that a majority of Washington citizens vote these folks into office. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

Do we? Anyone ever watch our Secy of State count votes? Do we have fair elections in WA state?

Good questions.

Sometimes it seems when the vote is going the right way, something just happens....magics.

Gotta do the math. Much more involved than the basic of the OP.

Here is my take and position:

I am 45 and plan on retireing at 55 I hope or soon there after.
Under the state plan I would pay roughly $1650 per year for the next 10 years or $16,500
I would qualify (if I work another 10 years) for $3000 per month and a max of $36000 in benefits.
If I work and pay into the system 10 years I get the benefit to help offset actual costs.

If you have had family in LTC you know this does not cover much of the cost. My g-ma in-law started with a nurse twice a week visit to home to do shopping and make sure medication was taken for a cost of about 2k per month for several years. By the end she was in a home at $6k per month for about a year, then over $10 for the last few months as care intesified. The state plan would have been exhausted quickly.

I am signing a plan tomorrow that will cost me $620 per year or $6200 for the next 10 years.
It covers up to $6,000 per month and a lifetime benefit of $219,000.
This plan is only good for as long as I make the premium payments.

These plans are akin to term life insurance, either use or lose aka if you die and do not collect the money is gone. Or if you are taken care of by family the money is gone.

I figure if I work 10ish years and pay $6200 and stop paying I will save myself more than 10k in premiums. I have enough, or plan to have enough, to pay my own LTC. If, upon retireing I decide to continue paying into my LTC I am assured my coverage is much better.

This is insurance, another gamble like term life insurance that you have to consider the odds. Remember, most term life policies are only good for 20 years before they expire and if you do not die in that period you lose the benefit, that is how they keep the premiums low enough for you to take.

Take this all with a grain of salt as each of us will have different scenarios and the benefits are indiviually different.

My brother is in the same boat and his wife does not work, so she does not pay into the system at all and will not recieve any benefit.

I have a close friend that has more than enough assets to cover his LTC easily, but under the state plan he will pay over $6k per year for this crap insurance through the state and he is retiring in less than 10 years so he will not get anything either from teh state.

Do the math. For some it is cheap insurance with low coverage, but more than they would normally have. For others it is an expensive insurance that is not needed or will not be used.

Great explanation!

I think this is a similar issue to Social Security but can become much worse. Yes, it is a problem, but do you think the state will not foul this program up and not keep it solvent?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadepfau/2 ... 8e047e53d9

The original Social Security Act of 1935 created retirement benefits for only the retired worker, who became eligible at age 65 [life expectancy was shorter back then]. In 1939, Congress passed amendments to extend benefits to spouses and minor children of retired and deceased workers. Disability insurance arrived in 1954, and the disability program expanded in subsequent years to include the families of disabled workers. In 1972, Congress passed legislation to create annual cost-of-living adjustments for benefit levels [inflation and the end of the gold standard]. Prior to that time, benefit increases were subject to the whims of Congress and happened only intermittently.

The 1975 Social Security Trustee’s report estimated that the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds would be depleted by 1979. Administrators generally want the Trust Fund to be on track to cover net outflows for at least 75 years, so this was a serious problem [there is no trust fund in reality!].

In 1977, Congress enacted amendments to deal with the impending financial problems. The amendments increased the payroll tax, increased the amount of income eligible for the payroll tax, and reduced benefits slightly. This fixed the problem until the economic slowdown of the early 1980s, which meant the Trust Fund again faced serious short-term funding problems [they kicked the can down to around 2012].

Alan Greenspan (who would later gain greater fame as a long-serving chair of the Federal Reserve Board) headed a commission to examine the problem in 1983. The Greenspan Commission called for – and Congress subsequently passed into law – a gradual increase in full retirement age from 65 to 67, increases in Social Security tax rates, and the addition of new taxes for the benefits of the wealthiest individuals. The goal was not only to solve the immediate financial problems, but also to create a surplus over the next few decades in anticipation of the inevitable drain from the coming baby boomer retirement. This law is still in place today. Currently, the combined employee/employer tax rate for OASDI is 12.4%, and the full retirement age is slowly ascending toward 67 for those born in 1960 and later. The full retirement age is currently 66 for those reaching this age by 2020.

It should come as no surprise that funding shortages will happen again at some point. Social Security in the United States is meant to be pay-as-you-go, meaning each generation of current workers pays for the benefits of the current retirees.

Three trends will make this task increasingly difficult despite the present surpluses. First, the baby boomer cohort is of unprecedented size and is currently reaching traditional retirement ages. Second, life spans are becoming longer, meaning retiring baby boomers will have longer retirements. Third, fertility rates are decreasing. During the height of the baby boom, women were having between 3.5 and 4 children on average during their lifetimes. The 2015 Trustee’s Report expects the long-run fertility rate in the United States to be just 2.These trends mean fewer workers available to support more retirees. Throughout its history, the ratio of covered workers contributing to Social Security relative to the number of retirement and survivor beneficiaries has been on a gradual decline. In 2000, there were four workers per retired beneficiary. This had fallen to 3.5 by 2014. The 2015 Trustee’s Report predicts 2.6 contributors per retiree by 2030. With recipients of disability benefits added in, they expect that number to drop to 2.2. As the ratio of workers to beneficiaries becomes more and more misaligned, new contributions will be unable to deliver the promised benefits.

This poses a clear problem. As the Greenspan Commission intended, the Trust Fund accumulates more each year than it spends in order to build a buffer. However, the size of the Trust Fund for retirement and survivors benefits peaked in 2011 and is now in decline. The Trust Fund for disability benefits is expected to run out in 2016.Combined outflow from both funds exceeded inflow in 2010, and the Social Security Trust Fund is currently expected to be depleted by 2034.

Subsequent years will be met with drastic cuts in benefits, increases in taxes, or borrowing from the rest of the government’s budget. Yet near retirees should not expect Social Security to disappear, as a variety of reforms could be implemented to get the system back on track [print more money].

Comments:

why do recent immigrants get social security? Remember in the 1990s there were PO boxes along the border where elderly from Mexico could set up a PO box and draw social security?

how will one million illegals per month affect the system? do they pay into it? or their employers?

I know a Chinese woman who came here and did quite well. Got a job with Swedish Hospital shuffling paper... spent her days scouring the webz finding every gov't and NGO subsidy she could slurp up.

Brought her 50-something year old retired mom here from China (I believe one retires at 50 in Cĥina).
Uncle Sugar set up her mom in a fully subsidized brand new apartment in the U-district. Social Security, subsidized housing, utilities, food and medical. Just like or better than Mao gave her back home. Never worked or paid into the system here for one day in her life.

The Daughter got run over (literally) by some rich guy and she legally leveraged the actual injury and some cosmetic damage to her knee (a small scar that caused her 'great emotional distress') into a $300,000 settlement payoff. Quit her job at Swedish, got pregnant, gets gov't benefits for the pregnancy - SNAP, medical, and etc - and moved into the subsidized housing with Chairman Mom.

There's a LOT more to this story, too.