(1) It is the intent of the legislature to ensure that needy individuals have access to basic long-term care without requiring them to sell their homes. In the face of rising medical costs and limited funding for social welfare programs, however, the state's medicaid and state-funded long-term care programs have placed an increasing financial burden on the state. By balancing the interests of individuals with immediate and future unmet medical care needs, surviving spouses and dependent children, adult nondependent children, more distant heirs, and the state, the estate recovery provisions of RCW 43.20B.080 and 74.39A.170 provide an equitable and reasonable method of easing the state's financial burden while ensuring the continued viability of the medicaid and state-funded long-term care programs.

(2) It is further the intent of the legislature to confirm that chapter 21, Laws of 1994, effective July 1, 1994, repealed and substantially reenacted the state's medicaid estate recovery laws and did not eliminate the department's authority to recover the cost of medical assistance paid prior to October 1, 1993, from the estates of deceased recipients regardless of whether they received benefits before, on, or after July 1, 1994.

Short title—Findings—Construction—Conflict with federal requirements—Part headings and captions not law—1997 c 392: See notes following RCW 74.39A.009.