The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act is insolvent according to a new report from the Republican House-Senate.
“In the summer of 2009, a series of email exchanges between the chief actuary and the CMS Office of Legislative Affairs show that support for the long-term care program was growing within the Obama administration and among Democrats in Congress, while the chief actuary’s concerns were becoming more emphatic,” the report said. “Despite these concerns, supporters of the CLASS Act continued to rely on budgetary gimmicks and flawed modeling.”
The CLASS Act is supposed to be a voluntary long term care program that gives people who pay into it protection against the costs of disability.
“This report is further confirmation that the Obama Administration willfully chose to ignore the fiscal insolvency of the CLASS program in order to achieve a political victory by pushing the president’s health care bill through Congress,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), co-chair of the Working Group. “The CLASS Act is a ticking time bomb that will place taxpayers’ money at risk due to fatal flaws in the entitlement program’s design and structure. The American people had a right to know the information revealed in our report before they were put on the hook to pay for this massive new entitlement program.”
LeadingAge, an industry group made of of 5,400 non-profit companies dedicated to expanding the possibilities for aging, says the report is incorrect and that the concerns were addressed in 2009.
“The emails referenced in the report were written before the Gregg Amendment required the Secretary to ensure the solvency of the CLASS Act,” said the group in a statement. “The CLASS Act passed because it is the right thing for America to do and it’s what Americans want.”
View the report.
Written by John Yedinak
