Last year California legislation known commonly as AB-1643 (Jones, Chapter 724, Statutes of 2006) required a study of the feasibility of expanding coverage in the long-term care insurance program offered by the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) to employees and recent retirees with disabilities who are currently excluded because they don’t meet underwriting criteria.

Should the findings of the study support extending this coverage to those currently excluded this benefit could be brought into line with health care and other benefits that do not discriminate against public employees with disabilities.

The study will also look at other factors, including the extent to which the proposal might result in savings to public benefit programs by encouraging persons with disabilities to go to work, and eliminating the need for those persons to deplete assets to qualify for public benefits in order to obtain long-term care coverage after retirement.

The study will be funded through a Medicaid infrastructure grant from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and will be managed by the California Health Incentives Improvement Project (CHIIP) of the California Institute for Human Services at Sonoma State University.

Our organization strongly supported this legislation. But this effort still needs help, which is why we are taking this poll:

If you are willing to be interviewed, help frame questions to be used in the study, and/or would like to talk further before deciding please go to the "Contact Us" link at the very top of this page and send us a note with information about how we might contact you.