WA Cares: Designed to Provide Working Families with Affordable, Long-Term Care Coverage

Over the past year, you’ve likely seen several AgeWise King County articles about the WA Cares Fund. You may already know that it’s a first-in-the-nation public long-term care insurance program, designed to provide working families with affordable, long-term care coverage. 

What you may not know is that all 13 Area Agencies on Aging in Washington state are helping to raise awareness in our respective communities about this new benefit and encouraging people to think about and plan for their long-term care needs.  

Click on the image above to watch Mary Mitchell and TonyB discuss WA Cares and more.

I welcomed this opportunity because it aligns it with our agency’s commitment to lead with race. We know that people of color have been left behind on so many fronts, and we want to make sure that doesn’t happen with the WA Cares Fund program.  

I have had both the honor of, and great fun in, meeting with local community media representatives to help their listeners and audiences better understand long-term care—what it is, who is going to need it (all of us!), and how to access it.   

Click on the image above to hear Mary Mitchell’s conversation with Trae Holiday about the need for affordable, long-term care coverage.

I invite you to listen to one of the podcasts or watch the interviews to learn more. These community media outlets do amazing work, keeping their communities informed and connected on a range of important issues. They are also a lot of fun to watch and listen to! I can’t thank them enough for being so generous with their time.  

• Podcast: The Washington State Cares Fund (The Seattle Medium, 13:57)
• Street Beat 97 hosted by Tony B (Rainier Avenue Radio, YouTube, 32:22)
• The Day with Trae | May 28th, 2024 (Converge Media, YouTube, 13:23)

I plan to keep spreading the word about WA Cares. When the program launches in July 2026 and the first beneficiaries access paid services as part of their well-earned benefit, I will look at the data to ensure that communities of color are proportionately represented.

Contributor Mary Mitchell directs Aging and Disability Services, a division of Seattle Human Services that serves as the Area Agency on Aging for Seattle and King County.

Learn more About WA Cares

WA Cares: How the Fund Works

WA Cares: KD’s Story (AgeWise, April 2024)

WA Cares: Sun-Hee & Yunhee’s Story (AgeWise, February 2024)

WA Cares: Arun’s Story—Bothell, WA (AgeWise, October 2023)

WA Cares: Planning for Long-Term Care (AgeWise, August 2023)