Posted on: Monday, March 31, 2003

EDITORIAL
Cover all the bases for long-term care

The latest long-term-care bill to emerge from the Senate seems to combine the best of both worlds.

Each taxpayer would pay $120 a year to create a long-term-care "supplementary" fund to offer at least partial relief for those who cannot afford private insurance. Meanwhile, those who can afford such private long-term-care insurance would receive a tax credit under the measure.

Sen. Fred Hemmings, who supports Gov. Linda Lingle's tax-break-only solution to long-term healthcare, says the combined program is "holding a good issue hostage to keep a bad initiative alive."

We would argue the opposite, that the payroll tax for long-term care is the stronger initiative keeping the weaker tax break alternative afloat.

Time and again, retirees have written to us about the obstacles to being approved for — let alone afford — private long-term-care insurance. Many insurers are simply not eager to take on anyone at risk for geriatric illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease.

And some of them, too, can see the merits of offering alternatives. According to a report by Advertiser Capitol Bureau writer Lynda Arakawa, one long-term-care specialist for John Hancock says the tax credit would provide an incentive for middle-class folks to buy coverage while the state long-term-care payroll tax could cover people without the resources.

Assuming that this bill is not a machiavellian means to kill either one or the other long-term-care proposal, we support this two-pronged approach because, as we've repeatedly stressed, Hawai'i must do all it can to prepare for the gray revolution.

Only 6 percent of Hawai'i residents have long-term-care insurance, according to the state Executive Office on Aging. Plus, a 2002 study by MetLife found that Hawai'i patients pay above the national average per-diem price for a private room in a nursing home, and also pay more for home healthcare aides.

In a nutshell, a long-term-care safety net is going to require more than private insurance tax breaks.