Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

What Is the CLASS Act Doing in a Deficit-Cutting Package?

Excerpt from Elder Law Answers Blog: (click for entire article)

We all know that President Obama and Congressional Republicans are locked in a battle over raising the nation’s debt limit. Republicans are refusing to agree to a rise (something they approved many times during the Bush Administration) without trillions of dollars in spending cuts. President Obama says he is willing to make some significant cuts but he wants them accompanied by a hike in taxes on the rich and corporations, something Republican hard-liners will not accept.

Along comes the “Gang of Six,” three Democratic and three Republican senators who have hammered out a compromise deficit-cutting proposal that is gaining some traction and that the President has praised in principle. But listed among the cuts the Gang would make is the CLASS Act, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s final legislative initiative. Enacted as part of the health reform law, CLASS is on track to set up a voluntary, self-funded national long-term care insurance program that will help millions of American families cope with their own impending financial crisis – caring for frail elderly parents and other disabled relatives.

What Is the CLASS Act Doing in a Deficit-Cutting Package?

Excerpt from Elder Law Answers Blog: (click for entire article)

We all know that President Obama and Congressional Republicans are locked in a battle over raising the nation’s debt limit. Republicans are refusing to agree to a rise (something they approved many times during the Bush Administration) without trillions of dollars in spending cuts. President Obama says he is willing to make some significant cuts but he wants them accompanied by a hike in taxes on the rich and corporations, something Republican hard-liners will not accept.

Along comes the “Gang of Six,” three Democratic and three Republican senators who have hammered out a compromise deficit-cutting proposal that is gaining some traction and that the President has praised in principle. But listed among the cuts the Gang would make is the CLASS Act, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s final legislative initiative. Enacted as part of the health reform law, CLASS is on track to set up a voluntary, self-funded national long-term care insurance program that will help millions of American families cope with their own impending financial crisis – caring for frail elderly parents and other disabled relatives.

Social Security Cuts and the CLASS Act

Excerpt from CJR: (click for entire article)

If the MSM is to be believed, soon we will know what cuts Congress has in mind for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the much maligned CLASS Act. That was a provision in the health reform law championed by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy that represented a teensy-tiny step toward a national program to pay for long-term care. That’s the same MSM that still uses language that mischaracterizes the programs in question or disguises what’s in store for ordinary folks. Campaign Desk has talked about this a lot lately, calling to task the NewsHour for letting the pols get away with empty Orwellian speak.

The Class Act in the Crosshairs

Patti's Comments:  OF COURSE IT IS. SIGH!

Excerpt from The New York Times: (click for entire article)

Congressional budget hawks have turned their attention to the Class Act, the nation’s first government-run long-term care insurance system. The program’s supporters and advocates, including more than 250 organizations representing older adults and people with disabilities, have fretted for some time about its fate, fearing that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives might try to dismantle it before it could take effect next year.

Now comes the Gang of Six, three senators from each party who are proposing ways to shrink the federal deficit. And there on page 3 of their “Bipartisan Plan to Reduce Our Nation’s Deficits,” released on Tuesday, is the death sentence: Repeal the Class Act. The document didn’t explain why the Gang had singled out that program.

ELDER LAW / CLASS ACT and at home nursing care

Excerpt from The Law Offices of David Parker: (click for entire article)

When the time comes, as does for most of us, that we need assistance in our daily living, the unfortunate fact is that too many of us end up in nursing homes – not because we need constant nursing care, but because there no other good options. A provision of the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act may help change that.

According to a recent article in the LA times, the most ambitious part of the Act, as it relates to long-term care is the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, or CLASS – a voluntary, consumer-financed insurance plan to cover long-term care expenses. CLASS, scheduled to go into effect in January of 2014, is an insurance plan, similar to those currently available in the private market, with a few notable distinctions. First, the program will be administered by the government. Second, any working adult age 18 or older will be able to enroll, regardless of any pre-existing medical condition, and the benefits will be good for as long as someone needs long-term care. Perhaps even more importantly, the government plan will offer benefits that could be used for a wide variety of expenses, including hiring a home care provider and doing home modifications.

Why We Need Community Living Assistance Services & Supports (CLASS)

Excerpt from Disability Blog: (click for entire article)

Staff from our organization, Family Caregiver Alliance, speak with family caregivers every day through our national information and referral hotline. These caregivers are often facing enormous financial difficulties. For example, adult children who are caring for parents with Alzheimer’s, especially in its advanced stages, find that keeping a job and being a caregiver is nearly impossible. The same goes for caregivers of a loved one with multiple conditions, those who are undergoing treatment like chemotherapy or those who simply needs assistance with multiple daily activities like eating, dressing and showering.

In addition to reduced income, many caregivers also take on more expenses, including co-pays, buying medical equipment or paying for supportive services like respite or direct care workers. Professor Richard Kaplan captured it best in his analysis of CLASS when he said that while family caregivers provide care “without charge,” this is not the same as “without cost.”

Why We Need Community Living Assistance Services & Supports (CLASS)

Excerpt from Disability Blog: (click for entire article)

Staff from our organization, Family Caregiver Alliance, speak with family caregivers every day through our national information and referral hotline. These caregivers are often facing enormous financial difficulties. For example, adult children who are caring for parents with Alzheimer’s, especially in its advanced stages, find that keeping a job and being a caregiver is nearly impossible. The same goes for caregivers of a loved one with multiple conditions, those who are undergoing treatment like chemotherapy or those who simply needs assistance with multiple daily activities like eating, dressing and showering.

In addition to reduced income, many caregivers also take on more expenses, including co-pays, buying medical equipment or paying for supportive services like respite or direct care workers. Professor Richard Kaplan captured it best in his analysis of CLASS when he said that while family caregivers provide care “without charge,” this is not the same as “without cost.”

At a Congressional hearing held in March on the topic of CLASS, a witness shared the story of his co-worker to demonstrate how the current system of long-term supports (provided through Medicaid) can sometimes fall flat because of increased demand and tightened state budgets. One of his co-workers received a letter from the state of New Jersey addressed to her mom. The letter informed her that she had moved to #176 on the waiting list for a Medicaid Home and Community-Based Service. Unfortunately, she received the letter a week after her mom passed away. This woman’s situation is not an isolated incident – the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured noted in a February report that there were 107,563 people on waiting lists for Medicaid Aged and Aged/Disabled Waivers in 2009, with an average wait time of six months.

Revisions to the Class Act?

Excerpt from Ther New York Timesd: (click for entire article)

In The Times on Saturday, Your Money columnist Ron Lieber revisits the Class Act, the government insurance program for long-term care included in the landmark health care law passed last year. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, is considering ways to make the program, which has not yet launched, both affordable and actuarially sound — no small task. Writes Mr. Lieber:

    She and her staff are making some changes, and the law gives them a certain amount of leeway. Their ultimate challenge is to make sure that the premium is not so low that there won’t be enough money to pay claims. But it also cannot be so high that it will scare off the young, healthy people who could subsidize all of the infirm people attracted to the plan’s generous eligibility rules (or frighten the employers of younger adults, who might encourage them to sign up).

    Plenty of politicians are furious about the fact that something like this became law without the long-term numbers adding up. The far more interesting question, however, is why Senator Kennedy felt this law was necessary in the first place.

Boustany Pushes for Repeal of CLASS Act in ObamaCare

Excerpt from PRLog: (click for entire article)

U.S. Congressman Charles W. Boustany, Jr., MD (R-Southwest Louisiana) today encouraged fellow lawmakers to support his legislation to repeal the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act in Obamacare (HR 1173).

“Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated in previous hearings she has the authority to ignore part of the CLASS statute to make the program look more solvent on paper,” Boustany said. “Instead of allowing this overreach, CLASS needs to be repealed immediately.  I have been leading the fight to repeal ObamaCare in its entirety, and I will keep working until this happens.”

President Obama has signed into law comprehensive healthcare reform legislation that contains a voluntary insurance program known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act (CLASS Act).

Fix the CLASS Act. Don't Repeal It.

Excerpt from Kaiser Health News: (click for entire article)

If it survives, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act would, for the first time, create a national, voluntary long-term care insurance program to help pay for personal care for the frail elderly and younger adults with disabilities. It is a modest first step toward turning long-term care from an unsustainable and inappropriate welfare program into an insurance-based system.

But congressional critics want to kill CLASS long before the first policy is ever sold. Rep. Phil Gingery, R-Ga., who has sponsored legislation to repeal the program, calls it "a Bernie Madoff-fraudulent investment scheme run by the Secretary of Health and Human Services." And the House GOP leadership's 2012 budget proposal, released on April 5, would eliminate CLASS, along with much of the rest of the 2010 health law.

Overheated rhetoric aside, critics have two substantive objections to this obscure health law measure. They are offended that, under the conventions of budget accounting, CLASS premiums are counted as revenues that help "pay for" health reform. And they fear that if the program fails as self-funded insurance, it eventually will be bailed out with general tax revenues.