OLYMPIA, Wash. - Who will need long-term care and who will pay for it are the topics of a study getting under way for the new year, ordered by the Washington Legislature.

State lawmakers in 2015 decided it's time to think ahead about the aging population, or risk the financial consequences of being unprepared for an age wave set to hit the state within 15 years. Dennis Mahar, who chairs the Washington Association of Area Agencies on Aging, says this conversation is long overdue.

"Particularly when you add things like dementia, it really becomes critical to start thinking about, 'How are we going to going to pay for this?'" he says. "Because if people wind up not having the savings, or blowing through their savings, they're going to wind up on the Medicaid system and it's going to cost the public system quite a bit."

The study, for the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, is supposed to be finished in a year, and will include recommendations that the Legislature can then decide whether to support. Mahar says Hawaii is the only state so far that has long-term care plans in place for its aging population.

Just seven percent of Washingtonians have purchased long-term care insurance. Mahar says that's mostly because it's expensive and fewer companies are willing to offer it and pay the sky-high claims. He says the current system also encourages lower-income seniors to spend down to poverty level, and higher-income seniors to shelter their assets all of which raise big questions about who pays for care.

"Is there another method that would enable us to cover more people?" asks Mahar. "That's what this actuarial study is really designed to do, is identify a couple of options that might work and then, is there political interest, either in the Legislature or from the public, to pass that sort of thing?"

About this time last year, a Legislative Executive Committee reported that family members deliver 80 percent of long-term care services and supports in Washington – in part because most people who need them can't afford them.


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The Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, plans to cut 7,000 jobs from the U.S. Social Security Administration as it works to reduce the size of the federal government by eliminating waste and fraud. Nearly one in six Coloradans relies on Social Security payments, according to AARP.

Economist Monique Morrissey with the Economic Policy Institute calls the planned cuts a form of sabotage, and says Social Security is already very efficient.

"Less than 1% of what they are paying out goes to administrative costs. That's including not just the staffing, but the office space and everything else," she said. "So, almost all the money that's going out of Social Security is going directly into beneficiaries' pockets."

Morrissey added the agency is challenged by staffing, which has recently fallen to a 50-year low. She said wait times for phone and in-person appointments have already skyrocketed, and half of all callers now hang up before anyone answers.

President Donald Trump's Senior Advisor Elon Musk claims Social Security could be cut by $500 billion without reducing benefits, but Morrissey said layoffs can only save that kind of money by making it harder for people to access their benefits.

"And they claim that they can do this through looking for waste, fraud and abuse. But when you consider that less than 1% goes to anything that's improper payments - which is mostly not fraud, but just mistakes, and that usually get recouped - you can't get half a trillion dollars out of it and not be cutting benefits," she continued.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security will run out of money in less than ten years unless Congress acts. Morrissey noted the majority of Americans would rather increase revenues than cut benefits, and added that one easy fix would be to remove the cap on payroll taxes.

"Everybody should pay the same share of their income into Social Security, and right now that is not happening. If you make more than $176,100, you don't pay taxes above that amount," she explained.

The Social Security office in Grand Junction is on a DOGE list of possible closures in June, although the agency said last month it "had not announced the permanent closure of any local field office."


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The Social Security Administration backtracked on a new plan, set to take effect today, that would have required more people to apply for benefits in person instead of by phone.

Older Kentuckians say they've worked hard their whole lives for their benefits, and are relieved the changes won't go into effect.

Older residents in rural areas would have had to drive up to four hours in some cases to a local Social Security office, said Carla Wallace, an executive council volunteer with AARP Kentucky.

She added that folks filing for benefits for the first time might've had to take a day off work to fill out paperwork they could have done over the phone.

"I think it's very disrespectful to our senior citizens and our disabled community," said Wallace. "It is very inconsiderate."

More than one million Kentuckians receive some form of Social Security benefit each year. And six million Americans age 65 and over live more than 45 miles roundtrip from their nearest Social Security office, according to a report this month by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Trump administration originally stated the changes would have reduced fraud risk.

Seniors' benefits shouldn't be on the chopping block, Wallace added. She noted that amid the rising cost of living, nearly half of the nation's older residents have trouble purchasing food or paying for housing and utilities.

She said AARP will continue to rally for Social Security.

"We are a nonpartisan organization," said Wallace. "We have people in Frankfort and in Washington, D.C. - advocating for us every day."

A nationwide survey released last year by the National Institute on Retirement Security found 87% of Americans agree that Social Security should remain a priority for the nation, no matter the state of budget deficits and across party lines.

The Social Security Administration has reversed its controversial plan to eliminate phone services for benefit claims, a move that would have forced millions of seniors to apply online or in person, creating barriers for rural residents and those without reliable internet access.

The decision followed intense advocacy from organizations and beneficiaries such as Phyllis Wilson of Southaven, Mississippi, who faced the system's challenges firsthand. While navigating issues with her spousal benefits under the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP), Wilson called the administration's 1-800 number and waited on hold for three hours without an answer, even documenting the ordeal with a screenshot. Her persistence paid off when she called the local office in Hernando, which was able to help.

"And I know there were other people who could not get through, whose offices had actually closed," she said, "but they answered right away and they talked to me about my spousal benefits and had told me that they could see that I was impacted by the WEP; there was nothing that I needed to do. "

Wilson's payment arrived within a week, prompting her to alert friends about the solution. The now-reversed policy would have affected Mississippi's 680,000 Social Security recipients. The administration itself estimates that this change could have overwhelmed offices with 4 million additional annual visits, or up to 85,000 more per week.

Kimberly Campbell, AARP Mississippi state director, praised the administration's about-face for recognizing the importance of phone access for vulnerable people.

"There is also the issue of travel," she said. "You have someplace where individuals may have to travel hours to get to in-person application and to prove their identities, and so removing the phone capabilities was critical to us."

As the administration implements phone-based fraud checks, projecting around 70,000 claims might be flagged annually for in-person verification, Campbell warned that access hurdles persist. Nearly 8 million seniors have travel-limiting disabilities, while 6 million don't drive at all, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.