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| Only Sure Way to Stop CLASS: REPEAL OBAMACARE |
House is not in session; constituent work week. The Senate at 4 PM will begin consideration of H.R. 2112, the Fiscal Year 2012 Agriculture appropriations bill, which will combine the FY 2012 Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development appropriations bills (also referred to as an Ag-CJS-THUD minibus).
The Senate will vote on the nomination of Cathy Bisson to be US District Judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Later this week, the Senate may take up the nomination of Heather Higginbottom to be Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget
The AP reported Saturday, “The Obama administration's signature health overhaul law, under relentless assault by Republicans, has suffered its first major casualty — a long-term care insurance plan dogged from the beginning by doubts over its financial solvency. The program became the first casualty in the political and policy wars over the health care law. It had been expected to launch in 2013.”
Politico added, “HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Friday that the department is calling for a halt to the implementation of the CLASS Act — a stunning end to the financially troubled long-term care insurance program and a major setback to the health care reform law.”
And The Hill notes, “CLASS is by far the biggest piece of healthcare reform to meet its end, and also the first to collapse entirely on its own. Republicans successfully repealed one much smaller provision, and the individual mandate could be struck down by the Supreme Court. But HHS officials acknowledged that CLASS fell apart simply because it was too flawed to salvage.”
In an editorial, The Wall Street Journal blasts Democrats for including the unsustainable program in the first place: “Democrats engineered the program known by the acronym Class with front-loaded premiums and back-loaded benefits so that on paper it threw off a lot of revenue early on but then bankrupted itself later. This design made it possible for the Congressional Budget Office to score the program as a money-raiser during its first decade and thus make ObamaCare look like it reduced the deficit. . . . HHS's own experts were warning Democrats all along that Class was a fiscal time bomb, so including it in the bill was a special act of fiscal corruption.”
And yet Democrats touted the CLASS program when they jammed Obamacare though the Senate in December 2009. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) said at the time, “I know these bills are big, well more than 800 pages, but this section on the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act , the so-called CLASS Act, is a breakthrough--I think to be understated….” And Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) claimed, “[W]e get a lot of bangs for the buck, as one might say, with the CLASS Act that we have in this bill.”
Sean Hackbarth at the U.S. Chamber highlights notes the following: "Yet, the peculiarity of CLASS continues because the administration has threatened to veto legislation to repeal it. Even stranger, The Hill reported this: 'Over the weekend, The Hill has learned, an administration official called CLASS Act advocates to reassure them that Obama is still committed to making the program work. That official also told advocates that widespread media reports on the program's demise were wrong, leaving advocates scratching their heads.' If you're confused, then join the crowd. We're back to wondering 'Does CLASS still exist?'" . . . "As this story unfolds, we’ve learned that CLASS isn't a zombie as much as it's a ghost. It appears, then disappears, only to reappear again. Congress can fix this paranormal activity by repealing CLASS along with the rest of the health care law and work to enact health care reform that tames rising costs while expanding access to affordable care."
Responding to Republican warnings about the CLASS Act, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said, “Certain colleagues on the other side of the aisle have argued that the CLASS plan would lead to a financially unstable entitlement program and would rapidly increase the Federal deficit. That is simply not accurate.” And he boasted, “The CLASS plan is a win-win for reducing costs in our health care system and protecting Americans who require long-term care.”
As Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said after the HHS announcement on Friday, “The Obama administration today acknowledged what they refused to admit when they passed their partisan health bill: the CLASS Act was a budget gimmick that might enhance the numbers on a Washington bureaucrat’s spreadsheet but was destined to fail in the real world. However, it is worth remembering that the CLASS Act is only one of the unwise, unsustainable components of an unwise, unsustainable law. We should repeal the CLASS Act and the rest of the health spending law and replace it with the type of common-sense reforms that lower costs and Americans support."
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