A bill making changes to the WA Cares Fund long-term care program recommended by the program’s advisory committee continues to work its way through the Legislature. AWC has not engaged on the bill this session, but since the WA Cares Fund program is of general interest to cities, especially HR professionals, we provide a synopsis below.

Washington’s long-term care program, the WA Cares Fund, provides up to $36,500 in benefits to qualifying employees for certain expenses related to long-term care needs. The program is funded by a 0.58% payroll tax on employees. The program is generally mandatory for Washington-based employees, although there are certain classes of employees that can qualify for exemptions from the program, and around 400,000 employees with alternative insurance participated in a one-time exemption process that ended in 2022. The Long-Term Services and Supports (LTSS) Trust Commission regularly makes policy recommendations to the Legislature regarding the program.

The WA Cares Fund has been somewhat contentious since its inception, especially regarding the exemption process and the impact of the program on employees who pay premiums but are unlikely to ever qualify for benefits. In response, the Legislature has adjusted and changed the program to address some of these issues. In 2024, there was a ballot initiative that would have made the program fully voluntary, but that initiative failed to pass.

SB 5291 is sponsored by Sen. Steve Conway (D–Tacoma). The bill made its way through the Senate earlier in the session and is now making its way through the House. It passed out of the House Appropriations Committee earlier this week.

The latest version of the bill makes a number of changes to the program that were recommended by the LTSS Trust Commission. The bill includes a number of proposals that have been recommended by the commission in the last several years, including:

• Prohibits people who have left the state and elect to continue participating in the WA Cares Fund program from withdrawing from the program.
• Permits previously exempted employees to be able to opt back into the WA Cares Fund program by July 1, 2028.
• Provides a voluntary exemption for active duty servicemembers with off-duty civilian jobs and an automatic exemption for employees here on a nonimmigrant temporary work visa.
• Establishes a new enforcement structure for the Employment Security Department to collect premiums.
• Eliminates the statutory LTSS Trust Council (a separate group which is responsible for recommending premium rates) and requires benefit units to be adjusted annually for inflation.
• Makes it easier for employees to qualify for benefits by removing the requirement that workers must have worked for at least five years consecutively out of the 10 years needed to qualify for benefits.
• Establishes a private market supplemental long-term care insurance market for beneficiaries that exhaust their WA Cares Fund benefits.
• Authorizes a pilot project to assess program capabilities in managing eligibility determinations and distributing payments to care providers.