The following editorial first appeared in the Chicago Tribune:
The picture keeps getting darker for the Obama administration’s health care reform program. Last Friday, one big part of it got eliminated — not by Congress and not by the courts, but by the Department of Health and Human Services. Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, abandoning a new program to provide long-term care for the elderly, announced, “I do not see a viable path forward.”
That may sound like a sensible admission, and it is. But the administration’s decision to scrap the effort is still a couple of years late. This is not a problem that emerged only recently, as a consequence of unforeseen developments. On the contrary, it was obvious all along.
The initiative, known as Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS), was supposed to cover services needed to let the elderly live at home, as well as nursing home stays. But it ran up against a harsh reality: Young and healthy people are generally uninterested in buying such coverage, and the people likely to buy it are also likely to take advantage of it.
So the money going out would eventually exceed the money coming in. Or, as one administration official wrote in an internal email in October 2009, “Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.”
President Barack Obama pressed on anyway. Worse yet, the administration pretended that the program would actually help pay for the rest of its health insurance plans. About $70 billion of the savings from the health care overhaul would allegedly come from the CLASS program.
That, however, was a cynical accounting gimmick. Because premiums would be coming in for the first few years, while no benefits would be paid, there was a stream of revenue that could defray other expenses. But over time, this provision was clearly destined to be a huge money-loser.
The administration would have liked to preserve the fiction it had relied on, but the law required that the program pay for itself over the next 75 years, and HHS officials couldn’t find a way to accomplish that.
If the premiums were set low enough to attract entrants, it seems, they wouldn’t capture enough revenue to cover expenses. If they were set high enough to cover expenses, they would run as high as $3,000 a month, and few people would participate.
The Obama administration announced the demise of CLASS late on a Friday, the traditional burial ground for bad news. But this is not a one-day-and-be-done-with-it story. CLASS was just one example of the smoke-and-mirrors approach that the White House and Democrats in Congress took to national health care. This was an expensive new entitlement, undertaken without a reliable funding mechanism. It was a big overreach on the part of the administration, which was too intent on expanding access to health insurance and not intent enough on containing costs.
As a result, the champions of national health care failed to create a system that was fiscally prudent and sustainable. The collapse of the CLASS program is the first casualty of that failure, but probably not the last.
Comments (17)
Add comment75 years...
How many other programs are required to be solvent over the next 75 years? Who can predict costs that far out anyway? That was a ridiculous requirement.
One republican recently stated that this law, as it was written, was never intended to pass in its current form, but with the unexpected election of Scott Brown, the dems had to scramble and pass this half-baked legislation. Kind of makes sense.
In the end, we're screwed. Longterm care can easily cost hundreds of dollars per day. Long term care insurance is a rip-off. Medicare doesn't cover it. Medicaid only kicks in after you've exhausted all of your financial resources (i.e. you're bankrupt). The 1%ers will be OK - you won't.
Rather than tank the CLASS Act, congress should have fixed what's wrong with it. But that won't happen in the current congress - maybe after 2012 when the OWS crowd rises up and boots the republicans out.
Republican Party does
Some Comments from Chicago Tribune on this very editorial:
"Once again the Editorial Board show its lack of understanding of policy. CLASS is intended to help with long term care, which is currently bankrupting Medicare. Given the fact we are living longer and will continue to live longer, this must be address. It sounds like the best solution for "Editorial Board" would to end Medicare and let poor die sooner.
The major difference between CLASS and the rest of the health care bill is purchase of insurance is mandatory. If buying insurance for long term care was mandatory there is an economic model for it. Since the rest of the bill has the mandatory provision, it is economically viable.
During the debate around health care, there were several actuarial model and some said this wouldn't work while others said this would. Due to the fact there isn't a market for long term care insurance because no one buys it when there young, there wasn't enough actuarial data to make perfect model. Hence the law created a test without people coming to rely on it, thus becomes easier to disband if needed."
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"Once again, the Trib editorial board lies through their collective teeth. The CLASS provision was not by any means a "big part" of the health care reform act.
But then, the Trib's editorial board has never let the facts get in the way of their opinion, just like so many of their online readers, apparently."
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"Gee can some one form the trib point to all the editorals they wrote about the gimmicks used to pass liar bush's tax cuts to benefit the wealthy."
What a surprise editorial
What a surprise editorial coming out of BO's home turf!
Except for this sentence - " It was a big overreach on the part of the administration, which was too intent on expanding access to health insurance and not intent enough on containing costs", it's spot on.
Obama and the progressives in Congress didn't care about costs when they rammed the healthcare bill though. There's all kinds of funny math in it. Their only agenda was getting it passed with the reality that eventually private health insurance companies would be put out of business and America would have a nationalized, single payer system in place.
Remember with the left, the ends always justify the means and power is the end game with them.
Whether it's housing, healthcare, banking, education, energy, etc., liberals believe that the state should be all powerful.
Look around the world - that way of thinking does not end well.
2012 get out and VOTE OUT
In 2012 get out and VOTE OUT the care takers of the 1% !
2012 get out and VOTE OUT
ANYBODY BUT OBAMA! Hillary where art thou?!!!
Pres. Obamas ONLY mistake has
Pres. Obamas ONLY mistake has been that he actually tried to work with the Republican Party.
I doubt we will see signs of that again moving forward.
Go Pres.!
Good idea, poor execution
Part of the answer is right in front of Obama but he doesn't see it or ignores it. For starters, eliminate fraud. We are losing billions to sham, phantom medical clinics. Pharmaceutical companies are now like big oil, maybe worse with all their "legal" addictive drugs. Palatial, for-profit medical centers with overly paid surgeons and doctors also need a look at. Start with the basics.
The goal
What's the primary goal of our nation's medical system? To provide quality medical care to the greatest number of people? Or to make some private companies and doctors rich?
Health care
I read an article last week, I think on Yahoo, that said the US is behind ALL the major countries in health care. I will do some research and find the article. You Republicans need to realize that health Care Reform bill was close to 90% what Republicans wanted during the Clinton administration.
Obama initiative, success
How can anyone now believe that Obama knows anything about leading, has any feasible ideas, or can be effective? Obama and his declining number of supporters blame everyone but Obama but where are the anti-war protestors that followed Bush everywhere he went? How would Iraq and Afghanistan be any different today if Bush was still in the White House? Why has not a single Obama economic initiative succeeded, and why do the federal spending, payments balance, manufacturing deficit and other measures all look substantially worse today than when Obama was elected?
Obama now has US troops in Africa! Where are the protests?
What was it that Obama was going to change that now has been changed?
@glacierdog
PLEASE remember that it took Bush 8 years to screw up this country! He got us into this financial downfall. I do not know why you Republican have kept blinders on! It is gonging to take MANY years to fix the mess the GWB got us into.
Ah, the good old days
"How would Iraq and Afghanistan be any different today if Bush was still in the White House?"
Who cares? We would have a civil war in THIS country because Bush would be in his THIRD term. The more apt question is: How would we be doing with John McCain and Sarah Palin in the WH?
No doubt we'd still be looking for Bin Laden, Gadhifi would still be in power, we'd be at war with Iran, and oil would be $250/bbl. Oh, and we'd be in the depths of a worldwide depression.
But I sure do like your Rumsfeldian way of asking strawman questions.
attitude 58...
You are the smartest man/woman in the world with all the answers, you are amazing....YOU should be our Mayor to lead us into the future.
You KNOW BO and the Pelosi/Reid/ group are the best thing to happen in America, you know LTC insurance is a ripoff (have you actually bought some?), is there anything out there that you are not an expert on? You libs can blame GW for all of Barack's failures, but most people are not going to continue to buy that line; milk us while you can, but your time of ruining our country, state, town is running short.
@nottacheechako
DREAM ON!!!!! The Republicans and the Tea Party are screwing themselves, even though OBama is not as popular as he once was.
chako
Actually, I'm pretty centrist. And no, I do not blame Bush for all of Obama's failures. I blame Bush for BUSH's failures, and they're legion. Obama owns plenty of his own failures as well. I have no opinion about Pelosi - she's not my representative. I have many opinions regarding Don Young, and most of them are negative.
Thank you for the personal compliments, but I have no interest in being mayor.
Single payer would eliminate all the money going to insurance
companies. Then maybe we could afford to help the elders stay in their homes, stay healthy, and get whatever needed long-term care might arise after that.
I will be there for sure!
I will be there for sure!