§ 42-7-103 — Wyoming long-term care partnership program established

(a) In accordance with title VI, section 6021 of the
federal Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, there shall be
established the Wyoming long-term care partnership program, to
be administered by the agency with the assistance of the
department, to provide incentives for individuals to insure
against the costs of providing for their long-term care needs by
creating a mechanism for individuals to qualify for coverage of
the cost of their long-term care needs under Medicaid without
first being required to substantially exhaust their resources.
(b) The agency shall:
(i) Before January 1, 2010, or as soon thereafter as
possible, make application to the federal department of health
and human services for a state plan amendment to establish that,
if an individual is a beneficiary of a long-term care
partnership program certified policy, the total assets an
individual owns and may retain under Medicaid and still qualify
for benefits under Medicaid at the time the individual applies
for long-term care benefits are increased by one dollar ($1.00)
for each one dollar ($1.00) of benefit paid out under the
individual's long-term care partnership program certified
insurance policy;
(ii) Provide information and technical assistance to
the department on the department's role in assuring that any
individual who sells a qualified long-term care insurance
partnership policy receives training and demonstrates evidence
of an understanding of such policies and how they relate to
other public and private coverage of long-term care.
(c) The department may not impose any requirement
affecting the terms of benefits of a policy under the
partnership program unless the department imposes such
requirement on long-term care insurance policies without regard
to whether the policy is covered under the partnership or is
offered in connection with such a partnership.
(d) The issuers of qualified long-term care partnership
policies in Wyoming shall provide regular reports to the
secretary of the federal department of health and human
services, in accordance with federal regulations.
(e) Reciprocity between the program and other state
programs shall be subject to the following:
(i) Any individual who has purchased a partnership
policy in any participating state, who has received benefits
under the policy and who applies for Medicaid in a participating
state other than the one in which the policy was issued shall
receive an asset disregard in an equal dollar amount to the
benefits received under the policy;
(ii) The asset disregard procedure and calculation
shall be the same for every individual with a partnership policy
who applies for Medicaid in the participating state, without
regard to whether the policy was purchased in another state or
the date the policy was purchased;
(iii) An amount equal to the benefits received under
the partnership policy shall be exempt from Medicaid estate
recovery provisions; and
(iv) If a person moves from the state in which the
person's partnership policy was issued, later applies for
Medicaid in another participating state and is determined to be
eligible using a partnership asset disregard, the partnership
asset disregard shall not be revoked upon eligibility
redetermination should the state subsequently decide to become
exempt from the reciprocity agreement.