Please exempt me? Workers seek a way out of new state payroll tax for good reason

Right now, the only people who can opt out of the WA Cares Fund, a new long-term-care (LTC) program that is supposed to be fueled by a payroll tax on workers, are those who had private long-term-care insurance (LTCI) purchased by Nov. 1, 2021. Their numbers are below.

Our 2019 study on the then-proposed law found that between 2022 and 2053, taxpayers would pay more than $30 billion for the state t...