A family caregiver who receives pay from an eventual beneficiary of WA Cares will need state-approved training. How many hours are outlined in the bill that created WA Cares, House Bill 1087. 

For example, Section 19 of HB 1087 outlines that a spouse or domestic partner of the person who needs long-term care is required to have 15 hours of basic training and another six hours of focused training based on the spouse or domestic partner's needs within 120 days of becoming the person’s caregiver. There are other requirements for other caregiver types. 

The state overseeing who a person picks to provide them with in-home services – if he or she wants to give them money for their time from taxpayers — is one of the things about WA Cares I think will surprise and disappoint people. 

Not only will becoming eligible for WA Cares not be possible until a worker has paid a payroll tax for the program for at least 10 years, without a five-year break, and has a physical need for ongoing, long-term care (LTC), the types of services that qualify for benefit dollars and who can be a caregiver, as well as how much the services can cost, is going to be up to the state. Eligible people won’t just be given a pot of money to use at their discretion. 

This is one of the many reasons I was critical of WA Cares and favored a solution for long-term care that involved encouraging people to save for all their life needs, making them aware of how many people use LTC and creating a healthy LTC insurance market. Most of all, I am for reforming Medicaid, which provides LTC to people in need but has also become the go-to for people of all income levels, including those who want to pass their assets onto their heirs while making taxpayers pay for their LTC needs. 

House Bill 1142 

A bill in the Legislature, House Bill 1142,  has passed the House and is now having hearings in the Senate. It reminded me to write about the training requirements in WA Cares. The bill would not change things about the law mandating that W2 workers pay taxes for all of their working years for a long-term care program they might or might not benefit from. The proposal would create standardized caregiver training and certification requirements for people receiving money from different pools of taxpayer funds to care for their family members.

It’s hard to be against parity, but it’s also hard to be supportive of a bill that continues to clarify that the state will control the money that state agencies say workers are “earning” in WA Cares. (Workers aren’t necessarily earning anything. And they certainly won’t have control of money from WA Cares if they ever receive a return on this state-required investment.)

I’m not sure what to tell lawmakers to do with HB 1142. I was glad to see newcomer Rep. Gloria Mendoza, R-Grandview, asking good questions and having valid concerns about the training that will be required of family members in general. Watch the House hearing on the proposal here. 

Will people who have been caregiving for family members for years be required to get training? The answer is “yes,” if they want to receive any of the WA Cares dollars that some workers are being promised if they are eligible one day.