Health Care Law Jeopardized? Key Program Cut
Email
The Obama administration’s decision to drop a key program in the health care law that would have provided long-term care insurance has given fresh ammunition to critics who say the entire bill should be repealed.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced late Friday that the agency was shelving the Community Living Assistance Services and Support program, or Class, because it could not find a financially sustainable model for it.
The voluntary program was a critical part of the Affordable Care Act. It would have reduced the federal budget by $70.2 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and was intended to lessen the burden on Medicaid by providing long-term care to about 2.8 million people.
Proponents touted it as a novel scheme that, unlike Medicare and Medicaid, would sustain itself through participant premiums.
Its elimination is likely to dent the cost savings achieved from the Affordable Care Act, savings that critics say have been created by “accounting gimmicks.” The announcement has given fuel to critics — who say it’s a sign that the administration cannot live up to its promises — who want to repeal the health care law.
“You basically have a law that was drafted for the Congressional Budget Office’s 10-year window to make it look like it was revenue-neutral. … The numbers don’t just add up,” said Brian Darling, senior fellow for government studies at the Heritage Foundation. “The No. 1 issue is jobs. But the second issue is whether the Obama administration has been competent in implementing policies. This Class Act embarrassment speaks to the idea that the Obama administration hasn’t been successful in implementing legislation.”
Proponents of the Affordable Care Act argue that even without the Class program, the law would still result in cost savings and that the case for repeal is “nonsense.”
“According to the CBO, even without the Class Act there would be a surplus within the first 10 years. The elimination of the Class Act reduces that surplus by a significant amount, but you still end up with a reduction on the deficit,” said Ron Pollack, director of nonprofit group Families USA.
Even during the health care debate, questions were raised about the program’s long-term sustainability. HHS estimated that the initial premium would be between $235 and $391 per month, and participants would be eligible for cash up to $50 a day once they needed it.
But the program was likely to attract people with health problems, meaning that it would actually prove more burdensome to the federal government in the long-term.
“In general, voluntary, unsubsidized and nonunderwritten insurance programs such as Class face a significant risk of failure as a result of adverse selection by participants,” Richard S. Foster, chief actuary of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, wrote in a memo last year. “Individuals with health problems or who anticipate a greater risk of functional limitation would be more likely to participate than those in better-than-average health.”
Even the CBO said the program would eventually add to the budget deficit, even though the law required Sebelius and future HHS secretaries to set premiums that would ensure the program was solvent for 75 years.
“The Class program could be subject to considerable financial risk in the future if it were unable to attract a sufficiently healthy group of enrollees,” stated a letter from CBO to House members. “Attracting healthy enrollees could be challenging for several reasons.”
The elimination of the Class program is unlikely to have an impact on the rest of the bill. While it was designed to work in tandem with other parts of the law, it was not meant to replace an existing provision.
Health care is a key issue in the 2012 presidential campaign debate. Most Republican candidates support repealing the health care law. Even leading GOP contender Mitt Romney, who is on the defensive for helping enact a law in Massachusetts that served as the model for the Affordable Care Act, has said he would repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety as soon as he became president.
UPDATE: The CBO said this afternoon that repealing the Class Act would not have any impact on the budget deficit.
Best Commencement Speeches of 2012 
Joe Biden Recalls Death of Wife, Daughter
The call for repeal isn’t non-sense, because it is unconstitutional, change the constitution and you can force us to buy whatever we want, but the commerce clause is for regulating commerce taking place, not for forcing commerce to happen.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | October 17, 2011, 1:59 pm 1:59 pm
This unconstitutional health care law will be thrown out by the courts or repealed by the next administration! What a shame the law had very little real health care reform in it, because real health care reform is still needed! We just didn’t need 16,000 new IRS agents to enforce the law, that Obamacare called for!!!
Posted by: RadioMan77 | October 17, 2011, 2:38 pm 2:38 pm
snewsom2997……..How often, if ever, do you receive an error/warning nsg from the ABCNEWS website to ‘slow down, you’re posint too quickly’? If you receive it, does it happen on your very first post?
Posted by: deanbob | October 17, 2011, 2:40 pm 2:40 pm
“…We just didn’t need 16,000 new IRS agents to enforce the law…” hey we could call it a jobs creation bill…
Posted by: RalphF | October 17, 2011, 2:49 pm 2:49 pm
That is just a symptom of how bad the ObamaCare bill really is. The entire bill should be repealed, in its entirety.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | October 17, 2011, 2:50 pm 2:50 pm
Posted by: deanbob—It happens after I have posted on another article, and it is still processing that one, you just have to slow down a little and let all comments post before posting new ones, look at the status bar at the bottom to tell if it is still processing.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | October 17, 2011, 2:56 pm 2:56 pm
snewsom2997 | October 17, 2011, 2:56 pm 2:56 pm…..For me, often, it occurs when I am posting my first comment. I have had some strange occurrences that only seem to be resolved by an email to Disney headquarters (after numerous emails to the ABC webmaster)!
Posted by: deanbob | October 17, 2011, 3:02 pm 3:02 pm
So what is the real reason US military advisors are being sent to Uganda? Is it for the interest of the US or for our national security or is it to help protect Soros’ financial (oil) investments ?
Posted by: deanbob | October 17, 2011, 3:05 pm 3:05 pm
Posted by: deanbob—I find hitting the back button and the submitting the comment again works. It is some kind of cookie issue.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | October 17, 2011, 3:20 pm 3:20 pm
…..For me, often, it occurs when I am posting my first comment. I have had some strange occurrences that only seem to be resolved by an email to Disney headquarters (after numerous emails to the ABC webmaster)!
—
Whenever I had a problem leaving comments at any NBC website, I just got in touch with GE…
Posted by: FYI | October 17, 2011, 3:21 pm 3:21 pm
Why doesn’t this Administration just force everyone to buy a Prius? Think about how many of Gore’s polar bears would be saved. Not to mention the loss of the entire American domesitc auto industry.
Posted by: s | October 17, 2011, 6:56 pm 6:56 pm
“Proponents of the Affordable Care Act argue that even without the Class program, the law would still result in cost savings and that the case for repeal is “nonsense.””
Without the $1/2 T dollars that Obamacare stole from Medicare it would easily be insolvent right now.
Posted by: Earl | October 17, 2011, 10:44 pm 10:44 pm
Well, the constitutionality of the clause that requires everyone to buy insurance will be decided by the Supremes; until then all we will have is strident voices from the GOP and its supporters trying to undo the Act. I predict that they will fail, because they don’t have an alternative plan to present, and the Supreme Court will not declare the Act unconstitutional, because there is a good, solid rationale for the requirement. Lots of younger, healthier people would opt not to purchase health insurance, because they will try to game the system. If that were to happen, then the cost of insuring the rest of the population would go up substantially. The GOP effort to undo the law will evaporate, because the Party has much bigger problems that it needs to focus on.
Posted by: Steve Hamilton | October 18, 2011, 2:45 am 2:45 am
Those who denigrate the bill haven’t read it. Or are profiting from the insurance industry.
There are so many positives in it for consumers. Just take the part where insurance companies can’t kick someone out for having a preexisting condition. Insurance companies were hiring teams to pore over all seriously ill customers and then kick them off their plan for something as simple as not declaring they were treated for acne as a teen. When that obviously has nothing to do with their current life-threatening condition.
The best part of the plan to keep costs down is the limit in 2014 of what they spend their premiums on. The insurance companies will have to spend 80 to 85% of all premiums on actual patients bills. This leaves 15 to 20% for overhead and profit. Compare that to the 25 to 40% they spend on overhead and profit now and you see why they are fighting to kill this law. It is greed plain and simple. Don’t be taken in by their talking heads, read the bill yourself at whitehouse.gov or trust in a non-partisan site for an overview.
Posted by: Librarian53 | October 18, 2011, 1:49 pm 1:49 pm
Posted by: Steve Hamilton—The government doesn’t have the Constitutional duty or mandate to do anything about personal healthcare, only public health, communicable diseases, we could not build a carrier and pay for that. Most of out healthcare dollars are not going towards public health or communicable diseases, they are going to paying the consequences of that individuals choices over their life, i.e. drugs, smoking, drinking, overeating, not exercising, or just staving off old age as long as possible no matter the cost. Until we remove the artificial demand created by the government though entitlement programs, prices will not go down, you do not reduce total cost by adding more people, you may reduce per unit cost though economies of scale but not total cost, more people will cost more money, and the law that say x amount of premiums must be used in that patients care make the whole thing untenable. With cost shifting and without the well people paying for the sick Insurance doesn’t work, if Insurance companies cannot use the money the receive from the young and the well to pay for the sick and the old, the amount of care the sick and the old will get will be reduced.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | October 18, 2011, 1:53 pm 1:53 pm
Posted by: Librarian53—Insurance is risk management, not charity, not a lottery that you make it big when you get sick. They either deny them coverage or charge them more, and since they can’t charge them more because of their condition they will charge all of us more. Peoples individual Health is not a societal problem unless it is communicable disease, only about 1% federal healthcare dollars is spent on that, the rest is spent on maintaining chronic disease, usually self caused, or staving off death no matter the cost. As a society we cannot afford to Socialize the consequences for an individuals decision, nor can we give people more than they were born with.
Posted by: snewsom2997 | October 18, 2011, 2:09 pm 2:09 pm
Since my latest trips to the doctor I have been a lot more concerned about my health.
Posted by: Erline Sigurdson | October 18, 2011, 11:03 pm 11:03 pm
Great job Oblamer
This is truly an INTENDED consequence of your actions!
Libya: Al-Qaeda Flag Planted On Benghazi Courthouse…
The blowback from NATO’s Libyan adventure is just beginning.
It was here at the courthouse in Benghazi where the first spark of the Libyan revolution ignited. It’s the symbolic seat of the revolution; post-Gaddafi Libya’s equivalent of Egypt’s Tahrir Square. And it was here, in the tumultuous months of civil war, that the ragtag rebel forces established their provisional government and primitive, yet effective, media center from which to tell foreign journalists about their “fight for freedom.”
But according to multiple eyewitnesses — myself included — one can now see both the Libyan rebel flag and the flag of al Qaeda fluttering atop Benghazi’s courthouse.
According to one Benghazi resident, Islamists driving brand-new SUVs and waving the black al Qaeda flag drive the city’s streets at night shouting, “Islamiya, Islamiya! No East, nor West,” a reference to previous worries that the country would be bifurcated between Gaddafi opponents in the east and the pro-Gaddafi elements in the west.
Posted by: cheron | November 3, 2011, 12:33 pm 12:33 pm
Steve H. – And all we had before were strident voices from the Left saying that we must push ANY bill through to get universal coverage, and they’ll “fix it later”. Now you’re seeing exception after exception being granted (cronyism) and programs that were legislated into the Act being dropped during slow news cycles (Friday afternoons) because they were TGTBT (too good to be true). So basically we have a carte blanche pile of crap law,which by the way, infringes on personal freedoms in the name of the “societal good”. Centralized social engineering has never proven successful, so what makes you think it will work this time based on the evidence you’ve seen to date?
Posted by: Ken | November 3, 2011, 5:57 pm 5:57 pm
It’s hilarious to watch the Faux News parrots in action. If it wasnt for Sean Hannity, you idiots wouldn’t know what your opinion was.
Posted by: Jay S | November 4, 2011, 2:28 am 2:28 am