(The Center Square) – Next year will be the first time that some Washingtonians who have paid into WA Cares can receive benefits.
WA Cares is a state-run program that provides a lifetime maximum benefit of $36,500 –adjusted for inflation – to eligible workers in the state, covering services like in-home care, home modifications, respite for family caregivers, and professional care in a residential setting.
The program is funded by a mandatory 0.58% payroll deduction from the wages of working Washingtonians.
But many questions about how WA Cares will work remain unanswered.
The Long-Term Services Investment Subcommittee convened for a virtual meeting on Wednesday.
At the meeting, Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, asked State Actuary Matt Smith if his office could predict whether the .58% payroll tax would be enough to keep the WA Cares Fund solvent.
“Do you have any feel for how long it’s going to take us to know whether the outlay we’re covering with the income that’s coming in will be enough or we’ll have to raise the 58 cents [per $100]?” King asked.
“It’s going to take some time, Sen. King,” Smith replied. “You think about the groups that are going to become eligible for benefits and how that’s going to emerge over time … and we have a group that won’t become eligible for 10 years. So we’re going to get information that is going to give us that information.”
It came out during the meeting that the WA Cares Fund has $2.9 billion. The vast majority of that is taxpayer-funded, with very little additional funding from any return on investment at this point.
Another big question concerns how union membership.
Opponents of WA Cares argue that the program is not primarily designed to help all Washingtonians, but rather to benefit unions like SEIU 775, which advocates for more taxpayer-funded caregivers, particularly regarding the possibility of family caregivers being required to pay some of their income to a union.
“We still don’t have clear guidance on whether or not family members are going to be allowed to opt out of union representation,” said Elizabeth New, director of the Center for Health Care and the Center for Worker Rights at the free-market Washington Policy Center think tank. “They say that they will be. But I’ve been waiting for it for a couple of years now, and I keep asking at every opportunity.”
New, who posted a blog this week about the lack of clarity regarding union dues for family caregivers, said that during recent webinars, administrators have not offered much help.
“And even while they’re registering and recruiting providers to be available, there is still no discussion about the way to opt out. And I’m afraid that if you watch these webinars, you just start signing up through CDWA [Consumer Direct Care Network] or a home care agency that has a union, and you don’t know that you don’t have to be a union member to give care to the person you’ve been giving care to in your home,” she explained.
State law explicitly gives employees the right to join a union or refuse to join one. “No caregiver can ever legally be forced to join a Union,” according to the SEIU 775 website itself.
While a specific union, such as SEIU 775, may be recognized as the exclusive bargaining representative for all home care employees in certain contexts, individual employees within that unit still have the right to decline formal membership and the payment of dues.
New’s advice to family caregivers is to hold on and pay attention to the coming changes.
“There is a third wave that they say is going to be coming in rulemaking. You want to watch who you’re signing up with; CDWA, I talked to, and they will all be giving dues or fees to a union,” she said. “Some home health care agencies, I hear, have that requirement, and some don’t.”
The Center Square also asked members of the committee about WA Cares and union membership during Wednesday’s meeting, but was informed that no questions would be answered during the event.
At the end of the meeting, committee member Sen. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, responded to the question, saying the answer will be coming shortly.
While New is not a fan of WA Cares, she did support Senate Joint Resolution 8201, passed by voters earlier this month, that amends the state constitution to allow the WA Cares Fund to be invested in a broader range of assets, including stocks and equities, not just fixed-income securities like government bonds.
She hopes SJR 8201 will improve the program’s solvency and avoid larger paycheck deductions in the future.
“So, people who don’t ever need long-term care obviously lose out on all of it. And good for them, right? They don’t need long-term care. That’s awesome. But they’ve still paid into this system, and they don’t get the benefit,” New observed.
She does applaud recent changes by state lawmakers that allow residents to take the benefit with them if they move out of state, but says more changes are needed.
“If you move out of state before you’ve put in enough years, you can take it with you, but you have to keep paying in for the full 10 years. You can’t just move out of state and be considered good to go. You have to continue to pay that tax on your payroll,” New noted. “So I don’t know how many people are going to follow through with that.”
