STAND. COM. REP. NO. 232

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2005

RE: H.B. No. 1334

H.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Health and Human Services, to which was referred H.B. No. 1334 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO LONG-TERM CARE,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to establish a long-term care mandatory premium to pay for long-term care benefits.

The measure also establishes a long-term care income tax credit and appropriates funds to set-up the premium.

Your Committees find that the growth in national expenditures for long-term care service for people age sixty-five years and older have reached an all time high. Many "baby boomers" will begin to reach the age of sixty-five years in 2011. More elderly people will reach advanced ages of eighty-five years and older than in the past because of declining mortality rates. These trends will cause the elderly population, which was just under thirteen per cent in 1995, to rise to twenty per cent in 2040. The population over age eighty-five, the segment most likely to require long-term care, will grow over three times its current size by 2040.

This measure addresses this growing concern by establishing a long-term mandatory premium to adequately prepare the State and its aging population for the heath care services that they expect and deserve.

Your Committees have amended the bill by:

(1) Establishing a long-term care benefit tax credit to address the concerns of the poor who are least likely to afford long-term care services; and

(2) By changing the effective date of the bill to January 1, 2007.

Finally, in addition to the long-term care mandatory premium provided under this measure, your Committees are also proposing legislation to establish a commission in the Office of the Insurance Commissioner to develop a plan for long-term care coverage. Your Committees are confident and hopeful that these measures will provide the necessary direction and means to address Hawaii's long-term care needs.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Health and Human Services that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1334, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1334, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Consumer Protection & Commerce.

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

 

____________________________

ALEX M. SONSON, Chair

____________________________

DENNIS A. ARAKAKI, Chair