Is the President “repealing” a piece of Obamacare?

Do you remember the Class Act?  That was the piece of Obamacare that was to provide long term disability insurance to anyone who paid the premiums for the insurance.

The plan was that you could begin to participate in Class in 2017, but couldn’t collect disability until you had paid premiums for five years.  Those premium payments kept Obamacare “deficit neutral” until 2021.  But, in case you had forgotten, the CBO estimated that Class would go broke in 2025.

I can only assume that the administration finally read the CBO report.

Although the President had requested $120 million in the 2012 budget to fund “preparations’ for Class, the administration later told Congress that the money would not be needed.

Meanwhile,

officials at the Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday said they may not go forward with the program.  ‘It is an open question whether the program will be implemented,’ the agency said.

This “disclosure” came on the heals of the firing of Bob Yee, the chief actuary for Class.  According to Mr. Yee,

My understanding is they are slowing down the development…[t]hey’re taking a pause and reducing the amount of work being done.

This, of course, is welcome news. 

Our country will go broke slightly later than currently planned.

 

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SoundOffSister

The Sound Off Sister was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and special trial attorney for the Department of Justice, Criminal Division; a partner in the Florida law firm of Shutts & Bowen, and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami, School of Law. The Sound Off Sister offers frequent commentary concerning legislation making its way through Congress, including the health reform legislation passed in early 2010.

6 Comments

  1. zedgar2 on September 26, 2011 at 9:59 pm

    The CLASS Act was inserted nominally in deference to then late Sen. Kennedy but in reality because it provided half of the $125 billion 10-year deficit reduction that Obamacare would supposedly produce. That’s because covered members would need to pay premiums for at least 5 years before they would be eligible to collect benefits if they became disabled – i.e., Obamacare’s scoring had 10 years of CLASS Act premiums but only 5 years of benefits. I suspect that Sebelius knew from the outset that CLASS could not possibly work and I think she hired Bob Yee, a respected Long Term Care actuary, to provide a temporary illusion that it was full speed ahead on CLASS benefits.



  2. Dimsdale on September 27, 2011 at 8:08 am

    Hmmm.? It isn’t too hard to extrapolate the same outcomes for the rest of the ?bamacare program, given how “well thought out” and “considered” it is.
    ?
    And how many waivers they have had to issue…



  3. Marilyn on September 27, 2011 at 8:51 am

    It ?looks like the Suprem Court will get the case soon?and we could have a decision by next summer on the?? constitutionality of the individual mandate.? I hate to say this, but my guess is that Justice Ginsburge will retire shortly giving President Obama another Nationalist Socialist Party seat.



  4. Dimsdale on September 27, 2011 at 11:22 am

    Doesn’t repealing what is essentially the funding linchpin of the program effectively invalidate the entire program, or at least pull the rug out of the alleged reasoning that the Democrats used to vote for it?



  5. PatRiot on September 28, 2011 at 11:52 am

    Looks like someone should have read it before they voted on it.
    And, like the Patriot Act,? the American people will pay dearly for it.



  6. OkieJim on October 1, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    I keep thinking of the irony of the colloquial term “class act” and “President Obama” in the same sentence. I think this will be the extent of anything Obama has to do with anything known as a class act. Of course, I’m about 300 miles off-topic, but hey, it’s irony … gotta point it out.



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