Bill Text: HI SB2309 | 2012 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: Long-term Care Partnership Program

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6-0)

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2012-03-08 - (H) Referred to HUS/HLT, CPC, FIN, referral sheet 41 [SB2309 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2012-SB2309-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2648

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2309

       S.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2309, S.D. 1, entitled:

 

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

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to provide incentives for individuals to obtain long-term care insurance, by requiring the Department of Human Services to establish a program that partners with the federal government to allow individuals who purchase and maintain a qualifying long-term care insurance policy to receive medicaid benefits, even if the individual has assets that would ordinarily disqualify the individual from receiving these benefits.

 

     Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from a concerned individual.  The Department of Human Services submitted written comments in opposition to this measure.

 

     Your Committee finds that this measure is intended to reduce future medicaid costs and eliminate dependence on medicaid by encouraging individuals to insure against the potentially high costs of long-term care.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Merging the definitions of "partnership" and "state medicaid agency," as the latter term is only used in the definition of "partnership";

 

     (2)  Clarifying that the exemption from medicaid benefit disqualifications based on an individual's assets also applies to individuals who have not yet received medicaid benefits; and

 

     (3)  Making technical nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of style, clarity, and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2309, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2309, S.D. 2.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

 

		____________________________ DAVID Y. IGE, Chair