BREAKING!! Obama's HHS ends controversial program in health reform law (Obamacare dying)

the hill ^ | 10/14/2011 | sam baker

[milwguy]

The Obama administration will not implement a controversial piece of the healthcare reform law, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Friday.

Sebelius said the department will not continue trying to implement the CLASS program, which was intended to provide insurance for long-term care. Republicans charged that the program’s financial structure was unsustainable, and Sebelius conceded as much Friday.

“We have not identified a way to make CLASS work at this time,” she wrote on the Huffington Post's website.

Sebelius said HHS will “suspend” implementation of the program.

The department recently reassigned the people it had placed in the CLASS office, following the release of emails showing that HHS officials had raised concerns about the program’s viability even before it became law.

[1010RD]

Barry cannot hear you. He’s being raised in Indonesian.

[presently no screen name]

bookmark.

[SierraWasp]

You left out the third thing...extreme GovernMental EnvironMentalism... The new state religion!!!

[firebrand]

I think the reason they say “at this time” is that there are still too many people living well into old age. When Medicare is subsumed (they wish) into Obamacare, older folks will lose a lot more than $500 billion in Medicare funds, and there will eventually not be too many elderly for the CLASS plan to work.

[DAC21]

Another Friday, another News dump from the O’Dumbo Admin.

[DAC21]

Another Friday, another News dump from the O’Dumbo Admin.

[PA-RIVER]

I’m coming around to Post Constitutional thinking.

Maybe I can suspend paying taxes for while.

And maybe ATF could sell me a few hundred assault rifles, so when the IRS come to collect, I can deliver.

[Shady]

You are correct. Part of the plan, “let’s just let these older folks take the blue pill...”

[Shady]

The bad press would make the Speaker cry.

[SunkenCiv]

Obama is a Democrat problem. That’s a bad thing, because Democrats are spineless demagogues — as further evidence, Barney Frank’s baldfaced lie about the home lending crisis he created — and they won’t do anything about him. Thanks milwguy.

[Mr. K]

"“We have not identified a way to make CLASS work at this time,” she wrote on the Huffington Post's website. "

Well...duh~! Don't they think they should have figured this out before they made it a law?

[Son House]

Cutting long-term care keeps the total cost lower, thus the lawyers can claim it now “affordable” before the Supreme Court.

[GlockThe Vote]

Bump.

[StAnDeliver]

Am I the only one to notice:

• The same logic that extinguishes CLASS as a viable program also extinguishes the rest of Bobocare.
• That Bobo is going to run upon the incipient failure of Bobocare as a means to attack Mittens!

[Eddie01]

Known as CLASS, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program... Isn't that CLASSP

[RockinRight]

Obamacare is falling apart.

[Starboard]

“I believe the law is written such that they can make implementation decisions. Our legislators have granted the executive the power to ‘legislate’ that way.”

---

Thanks to all. Understand that there may be some discretion within the legislation regarding details on execution, but this particular provision seems to have been a key component of the “savings” that were cited to justify this legislative monstrosity so I was surprised that it could just be swept under the rug so easily. Then again, congress does not seem to mind passing the buck to avoid responsibility, so they may well be happy to offload such decisions to an agency head. Whatever the case, it is satisfying to see Obamacare being undone by its devious complexities.

[firebrand]

I don’t think “affordable” has much to do with the court case.

[Soothesayer9]

Its always something with him, in one fashion or another.