Thanks, Rich for the excellent rebuttal and pointing up the typical hypocrisy from the wrong, Right.

What @1 said.

As to @2 I've always got Canadian military long term care, so I'm good.

II ran the numbers, and found I was much better off getting a private LTC plan, and opting out of WA Cares. This is probably true for most people.

@5 no prob

@4 One of the bad things about WA Cares though is that it has driven many of the private insurers out of the market. They were inundated with people signing up for insurance and then almost immediately dropping their policy because there are no future checks to ensure people who opted out actually keep their policies. So now we are pretty much stuck with a poorly designed government benefit that will provide minimal coverage for a higher price and a few private polices that are much. more expensive than they should be due to the churn created by the state. So I guess if Rich's definition of success is a crappy benefit (that no one asked for or really wanted) and driving choice from the market, then yeah this is great. Of course he just spends his time on personal attacks rather than addressing the weaknesses of the program.

Fans of personal responsibility should be in favor of WA Cares. People won’t and don’t plan for their needs, which is why so many seniors—many who did not consider themselves poor during their working years—inevitably come to rely on Medicaid. Implementing an earned benefit for long-term care is a responsible way to reduce freeloading. There was a time when this would be viewed as a centrist policy. At the poles you have anti-government populists who hate government until they need it (psst…70% of people who make it to age 65 will need LTC; look it up) coupled with debt-tolerant liberals who demand health care equity today, no matter the intergenerational inequity of massive debt. This is the middle ground.