After the CLASS Act

The House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Health recommended by voice vote yesterday to formally repeal the CLASS Act, the long-term care program created by PPACA. The vote is a welcomed move that will finally put to rest a failed program and open doors to new ideas.

The CLASS Act had been sold as a solution to the long-term care crisis and deficit reduction. On closer inspection, however, it accomplished neither. The CBO’s projections for the Act’s $81 billion in savings only accounted for the program’s first ten years—after 2029 the Act would have started contributing to the deficit.  Kathleen Sebelius, the Director of HHS admitted last month that there was no viable way to implement CLASS as is.

Repealing the CLASS Act would be a blow to the Affordable Care Act’s viability, as it was the source of most of PPACA’s purported savings over the next ten years. Some Democrats on the subcommittee panel continued to defend the CLASS Act, hoping to “tweak” it back to life somehow. But after a year and a half of tweaking, it is time to move on and open the discussion again for long-term care reform. We need real reform in the Medicaid program and a viable private long-term care insurance market to effectively address the long-term care crisis.

--Ryan Holland & Michael Ramlet