Opinion: Time spent as a family caregiver, no matter your gender, will hinder eligibility in WA Cares

Elizabeth New argues that WA Cares does not offer flexibility and choices for family caregivers, impacting many Washingtonians.

Elizabeth New (Hovde) believes I-2124 does not treat women badly. It offers them choices. WA Cares does not.

Elizabeth New (Hovde)
Washington Policy Center

Opponents of the initiative that would make WA Cares optional keep saying that the passage of Initiative 2124 will hurt women. This woman says it’s the opposite for many of us. WA Cares is doing the hurting, taking another slice of many people’s wages and not guaranteeing any of them will ever see a WA Cares benefit.

Instead of picking women (and men) winners and losers, as lawmakers are doing with the long-term-care program, they should let workers decide what is best for their individual needs and financial realities. Right now, the state is taking 58 cents of every $100 earned from men and women’s paychecks. It is money they might never see again.

I’ve been a single mom for nearly all of my sons’ school years, often working part-time or away from the formal W2 workforce so I could raise my children. I also had a near-fatal accident that would have interrupted a nine-to-five version of work for years. In the future, I might end up needing to care for aging family members or grandkids — again taking time away from formal W2 work. All these things make qualifying for WA Cares questionable.

Most people need to pay into WA Cares for 10 years — working at least 500 hours in each of those years — and without a break of five or more years to qualify for WA Cares’ benefits. See the trouble? Many women (and men) will be paying into WA Cares but still excluded from the inadequate benefit being promised. Gig workers face this eligibility hurdle along with stay-at-home parents and other caregivers.

This is how WA Cares is designed: It needs to exclude people to stay solvent. And WA Cares was set up to add revenue to an already healthy budget and create more taxpayer-paid caregivers, not to offer all Washingtonians funding for long-term care.

So why do opponents of I-2124 insist women would be hurt by the initiative’s passage?

Women are most often family caregivers. With WA Cares, some caregivers (men or women) could be paid by taxpayers to provide long-term caregiving for a family member. Family caregivers will have to be approved of by the state and have state-chosen training, but jump through the right hoops and it might work out. If enough people say “yes” to I-2124 and make the program optional, the number of people who say, “So long, WA Cares,” could threaten this program’s viability. WA Cares already has solvency concerns at its current tax rate, which, by the way, could increase whether the initiative passes or doesn’t.

I-2124 opponents also want you to believe that private long-term-care (LTC) insurers take advantage of women, charging women more than men for insurance. Hogwash.

Private LTC insurers are not mean to women. Insurers are dictated by numbers and probabilities and actuarial modeling, just as WA Cares is trying to be, and why the program needs to take in more money than it will pay out, resulting in its various exclusions.

Women live longer. They use more long-term care. This is the reason it typically costs them more in the private sector when they choose to have private LTCI. The usage determination is not unlike male teens paying a prettier penny for car insurance than other drivers. Insurers know who costs them more money. They price insurance products accordingly. No one is forced to buy their long-term care products. Long-term care can be financed in many other ways people choose.

I-2124 also does not treat women badly. It offers them choices. WA Cares does not.

Whipping up men-vs.-women drama to try to sway people to vote against an initiative that brings more choice to Washingtonians is misleading and underestimates voters.

I-2124 allows people to choose whether WA Cares works for their individual needs or doesn’t. That’s a choice lawmakers took away from both men and women.

Elizabeth New (Hovde) is a policy analyst and the director of the Centers for Health Care and Worker Rights at the Washington Policy Center. She is a Clark County resident.

Elizabeth New (Hovde) believes I-2124 does not treat women badly. It offers them choices. WA Cares does not.

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