The sixth of six submitted initiatives to the 2024 Washington State Legislature sponsored by Republican State Party Chair Jim Walsh and funded by right wing multimillionaire Brian Heywood was certified yesterday evening, which means it is destined for the November 2024 ballot for approval or rejection by voters.
Initiative 2124 has been maliciously engineered to cause the Washington Cares Fund to fail. That’s the system the Washington State Legislature set up a few years ago to address the long term care affordability crisis. By making participation in the Fund optional, I‑2124 would leave the system without enough money to operate, leaving most households at the mercy of expensive big long-term care insurers which only the wealthiest can afford.
It’s been estimated that the vast majority of us — 70% — will eventually need long-term care as we age. That includes help with meals, chores, and daily tasks. Passage of Initiative 2124 would leave working Washingtonians without access to an affordable plan they can count on to provide them with money to pay for long-term care, including in-home care, when they need it.
According to the Secretary of State’s Elections Division, 26,154 pages of signatures were received for I‑2081, containing 427,481 lines.
324,516 valid signatures are currently required to qualify a statewide initiative.
Initiative 2124 had a sufficient cushion of extra signatures to qualify for a random sample check as allowed by state law, which consisted of 12,825 signatures.
Of those, 10,552 were accepted and 2,273 were reviewed. 2,259 signatures were determined to be invalid, and fourteen were determined to be duplicate.
Secretary Hobbs yesterday transmitted a certification message to the Legislature affixed with the state seal, advising of I‑2124’s qualification.
Legislative staff have given I‑2124 its own bill-style page on leg.wa.gov.
The ballot title for I‑2124 is as follows:
Initiative Measure No. 2124 concerns state long term care insurance.
This measure would provide that employees and self-employed people must elect to keep coverage under RCW 50B.04 and could opt-out any time. It would also repeal a law governing an exemption for employees.
Should this measure be enacted into law? Yes [ ] No [ ]
The summary is as follows:
This measure would amend state law establishing a state long term care insurance program to provide that employees and self-employed people must elect to keep coverage under RCW 50B.04, allow employees to opt-out of coverage under RCW 50B.04 at any time, and repeal a current law governing exemptions for employees who had purchased long term care insurance before November 1, 2021.
Legislators have three choices as to how to respond to I‑2124:
- Do nothing, in which case it goes to voters
- Adopt the measure into law
- Send it to the November 2024 ballot with an alternative
NPI opposes Initiative 2124 and is working for the measure’s defeat. Because the chances of the Democratic-controlled Legislature approving I‑2124 are pretty much nonexistent, it will be getting forwarded automatically to the ballot, as mentioned above. NPI’s Stop Greed project is urging a no vote on I‑2124; if you’d like to support this effort, you can donate to Stop Greed here using ActBlue.
We also invite you to join us in voting NO on I‑2124 later this year.
