FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2011
POLITICAL PISTACHO
By Douglas V. Gibbs
The CLASS Act is a provision in Obama's Health Care Law that addresses long term care. It stands for “Community Living Assistance Services and Supports.” The provision is a voluntary insurance program that would cover home health-care options for adults who become disabled. It was Senator Ted Kennedy’s baby. The White House has been supportive of it in public, but not so in private.The problems with the CLASS Act include the fact that it is frontloaded in its claim of savings, and backloaded in its costs. It is that way on purpose, so that you won't know how much it hurts until America is addicted to it.
Senator Chris Dodd was chairing the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee in Kennedy’s absence, and was working to get the support the provision needed to be a part of Obamacare. Dodd allowed a Republican, Senator Judd Gregg, to add an amendment, which was designed to weaken the program, but it was that amendment that garnered enough support for the provision to be included in the Health Care Bill at the time.
Now, the CLASS Act has been yanked by the Obama administration. But, after yanking it, they now say they want it back in. President Obama has decided that after yanking the provision, he is against repealing the health law's long-term-care CLASS Act and might veto Republican efforts to do so.
The common belief is the provision is dead, but never underestimate the audacity of the Left.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced in a blog post on the Huffington Post website that the administration did not see a way to make the program sustainable. Sebelius said her agency could not ensure the program providing long-term care paid for itself as required by law.
Remember, these are the same dirt bags that told us the CLASS Act would save a bundle of money.
Hmmm, could it be that was a lie?
Now, as Congressional Republicans call for the immediate repeal of the CLASS Act, an unworkable long-term care benefit as far as Obama and his cronies are concerned, the democrats have decided to defend it.
The Obama administration has announced that though the CLASS Act can't pay for itself, they don't want it repealed.
What is wrong with these people? The funding mechanism doesn't exist, they don't have a way to implement the provision, yet, Obama opposes repeal. He wants to continue to fight for the CLASS Act.
Why defend it after announcing the death of the CLASS Act aspect of Obamacare?
Obamacare, as a whole, has not been subjected to the kind of scrutiny the CLASS Act was. When they were considering killing the program, the actuary announced that he was being laid off and that the regime was gonna kill the program - a way news of their plans was not supposed to get out. So, to try to fix how it was all being viewed, they decided to deny that closure of the program was imminent. They insisted they were still working on the problem of funding, and tried to bury the actuary's announcement to avoid embarrassment.
Then again, I wonder if the Obama Team is hoping that the Supreme Court's opinion will be that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Think about it. If that was to happen, the unpopular law would not be a hindrance to Obama's campaign, and at the same time he could use it as a tool to accuse the GOP of taking away the people's health care (because, after all, he really thinks the people support it).
They know the health care law is a piece of crap, anyway. It was put into place to move America towards more government control, not because it is anything better than the existing system. That's why they issued waivers.
Of course, now, they've canceled the waivers.
The waivers were offered to conceal the bad aspects of this from people before the election. That, and the waivers gave the Obama administration a way of playing preference politics with businesses. . . you know, like the mercantilist that Obama truly is.
As for the CLASS Act, it turns out they got caught with a bad law, and they know it, and they can't seem to find a way to cover it up. They want to secretly get rid of it, but it didn't happen that way. In a sense, it is actually pretty funny watching the democrats squirm like this.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
What the CLASS Act says about health-care reform - Washington Post
CLASS Act is just the tip of the Obamacare iceberg - Washington Examiner
