Given the relatively low number of residents covered by private long-term care insurance (approximately 12 percent), AARP Hawaii supports SB 104 as a potentially promising response to the state’s elder care dilemma.

AARP also supports a separate bill that would appropriate funds for public education and awareness about the high cost of long-term care.

The new long-term care survey was conducted by telephone Nov. 9 through 26, 2012, with Hawaii residents age 50-plus, 56 percent of whom were not AARP members.  More than 40 percent of residents surveyed were between 50 and 59 years old. The survey breaks responses down by county and has a margin of error of ± 3.5 percent.