Bills aimed at delaying the start of the WA Cares Fund by 18 months, and provide new exemptions to the long-term care program, passed out of the House on January 19. Both bills have since been scheduled for action in the Senate this week in a bid to quickly send the short-term fixes for the program to the Governor’s desk. We wrote about the bills when they were up for their first set of hearings here.

Both bills were amended in the House Appropriations Committee before making it to the floor. The amendments were minor. HB 1732 (delaying WA Cares by 18 months) was amended to adjust some of the agency reporting dates, actuarial evaluations, and premium rate adjustment authority to reflect the implementation date delay and the Legislature’s expected future action to continue tweaking the program. HB 1733 (which provides new exemptions) was amended to clarify how refunds of premiums will be carried out and clarifies that employees are once again responsible for premium payments if an exemption no longer applies.

The two bills passed out of the House with bi-partisan majorities, though not without a few legislative fireworks on the floor, which you can watch here. On HB 1732, House Republicans (who generally oppose the WA Cares Fund as a whole) attempted to bring to the floor several of their caucus’ bills to repeal or change the program, as their bills had not received hearings. No additional amendments or changes were adopted and the “delay bill” ultimately passed out of the House with a 91-6 vote. For HB 1733, several amendments were offered to provide additional exemptions to the WA Cares Fund program, but those efforts also failed. The “exemptions bill” passed out of the House on a 67-29 vote.

Neither of the bills make significant changes to the existing opt-out deadlines for those who had private coverage prior to November 1, 2021.

AWC has signed in support of HB 1732 and has not engaged on HB 1733.

Date to remember

HB 1732 and HB 1733 are scheduled for public hearings in the Senate Ways & Means Committee on Monday, January 24 at 4 pm. Both bills are also scheduled for a committee vote on Tuesday, January 25 at 4 pm.