Posted on 03/27/2010 12:55:55 PM PDT by freespirited
Health reform is many things, but not a class act. The reason: the CLASS Act.
The legislation signed into law last week includes a provision called the CLASS Act, which provides long-term care at home. Few know about it, but experts agree it could well explode the federal budget deficit down the road.
The Act was designed to assist people who need help with daily tasks and are willing to pay for in-home assistance. ...
The problem: The plan, as currently constructed, can't possibly pay for itself over the long run and will blow a hole in the federal budget unless lawmakers become more diligent than we expect them to be.
Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, has called the measure a Ponzi scheme. He and other Democrats wrote a letter last year expressing concerns about the fiscal soundness of the proposal.
Ace reporter Jennifer Haberkorn of The Washington Times wrote an excellent front-page article about the dangers of the Act in November. But no one paid much attention.
Haberkorn explained that the program would collect monthly premiums from all working Americans unless they opted out. People who stayed in for five years would be eligible for federal subsidies that would help them purchase in-home care when they could no longer eat, shower or dress themselves.
The arrangement would work for a while. ...
But eventually the worm will turn. By the end of the decade, government and private estimates point out, the CLASS Act will take in billions of dollars less than the monthly premiums can cover and could, in fact, be insolvent by 2021.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
How transparent!
You run out of what you paid in after 6 months and then its welfare!
Of course for those paying in its a big amount per month.
Anyone know how we opt out?
I’ll take a WAG that the powers that be probably havent even figured out how they will let us opt out.
We could contact our congresscritters and demand that they find out. That would be interesting.
It is like the pay raises congress gets but only if you don’t vote for them!
Another insolvent government entitlement. This is not news.
heh.
But Jeff, don’t you understand??? We passed it without reading it so that we could then know what was in it. Very similar to when we sent a mission to Mars without first testing anything so that when it crashed on Mars we’d then be able to see the crash???????????????????????????????????????? Just saying!
Dang, I was going to get my $$$ worth writing a fake doctor’s note since my husband is an engineer and can’t dress himself without my help, haaa!
No worries, cash for caulkers will take care of all of this. I’m sure that the created or saved money will cover this debt for..........................
What about kids that are disabled? Or just kids in general, babies need in home health care. We use to call them moms back in my day.
Seriously though could you charge the government for taking care of a sick family member?
They can’t print money fast enough to cover this.
Actually, this is a ploy. Engineers ofver the years have found out that wives don't don't respond to logical thought and don't like to feel inferior so engineers developed this persona where they act like klutzes around their wives. (ducking).
This exact program (without being able to opt out of paying for it) happens in Texas right now, all the time, every day.
Patients sign up for “attendant” or “non-technical home services,” with a home health care provider, and if the doctor signs that the patient could use some help with doing some things at home, then the home health care provider hires someone who is usually a RELATIVE or FRIEND to do perhaps 20 hours of work a week for the patient. The home health company has to check on the person hired about twice a year, and in exchange it gets paid to supervise the issue and get forms updated periodically.
In reality the home health care companies SOLICIT family members of sick patients by telling them that they can get them paid to do the work at home that they are already doing. Lots of takers...
The state agency in charge of this thinks all that is JUST FINE, basically admitting that they consider it a program designed to transfer wealth to such families as qualify for this.
Socialism and fascism and plan old corruption continue, and now the same thing will happen at a Federal level. Don’t like it? Well, you are just “mean spirited” and hate old people and dogs...
(and by the way the person hired usually does not do any more work at all ... and they even get paid and turn in hours for SHOPPING for the patient...)_
Absolute cluster.
I think one reason (if not the main reason) for this nonsense was to game the CBO score for the Obamacare legislation. The premiums are collected starting during the scoring period but the (unsustainable) benefits aren’t available until after they are no longer scored. NRO wrote about this in their takedown of the CBO scoring of Obamacare here:
http://healthcare.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmRmNzg2NDM4MGJiMWIzMTAzMzY1YWQ0Mjc5ZTJkYTc=
In California these “workers” are then unionized.
Sen Conrad is chairman of the Budget Committee, he labeled the measure a Ponzi scheme, yet it was his vote that allowed it to become the law of the land.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.