No CLASS No Surprise

HHS Secretary Kathleen "Kill All You Want; We'll Fund More" Sebelius - She never heard of a fetus she didn't want you to pay to murderThe only two examples of class shown by the Obama Regime have been class warfare and the CLASS Act, that part of Obamacare which provided insurance coverage for home health-care options for adults who became disabled. Now it seems that there will only be class warfare as those who do Obama’s more subtle wetwork have decided to put an end to CLASS.

The CLASS Act (Community Living Assistance Services and Supports) program was canceled by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius after a failed 19-month effort to find a way to make it financially viable.

There’s no real surprise in this. CLASS was doomed to failure from the start for well known reasons.

In a letter to Congress, Sebelius wrote, “Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time.”

The CLASS program was similar to long-term care plans available in the private sector in which workers sign up and pay a monthly premium. It was voluntary and was to be paid for entirely by the premiums from those who signed up. In return, subscribers would get a daily benefit.

But a senior administration official told CNN that there were big questions whether CLASS could be self-sustaining even when the health care reform law was being considered by Congress. And as a result, lawmakers specified that the HHS secretary had to determine that the program would be sustainable for 75 years before certifying it.

Scott Spoerry, CNN Senior Producer

This outcome was well understood by all involved. CLASS’ savings were frontloaded and its costs were backloaded. Hence, in the first decade CLASS would have been a net budgetary saving and a viable program but after that – 2020 onwards – it would have become a budgetary center.

People have to understand that the Obama Regime never intended for the CLASS Act to actually go into effect, though I believe they’d have been perfectly happy if it had done so. It was nothing more than a cynical ploy to get public support for the rest of Obamacare and something that could be later used as bargaining chip if Obama and his Liberals remain as a credible threat in DC after 2012.

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