But you will love it, America.
"Obama’s long-term care plan in doubt" October 18, 2011|By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The White House sent mixed messages yesterday on the future of a financially troubled long-term care program in President Obama’s health overhaul law, as supporters and foes heaped criticism on the administration.
Mixed messages is nothing new from the government or mouthpiece media.
At stake is the CLASS Act, a major new program intended to provide affordable long-term care insurance. Last Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the administration would not proceed with the plan because she has been unable to find a way to make the program financially solvent.
But pay the war profiteers for the cost overruns.
Yesterday, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a ruling that cleared the way for repealing the act, but the administration rejected that step - and created considerable confusion. Backers and opponents said the White House is trying to have it both ways.
And they wonder why we are angry out here?
“I feel like somebody just called me about how to do really good pet care after they shot my dog,’’ said Larry Minnix, president of LeadingAge, a trade group representing nonprofit nursing homes, which are strong supporters of CLASS.
Paying for long-term care for a frail, elderly family member is a major financial dilemma for America’s middle class. Medicare only covers short-term nursing home stays, for patients in rehab. And to become eligible for Medicaid, people have to spend most of their assets, akin to impoverishing themselves. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program was supposed to help provide an answer.
This is WHY the PUBLIC wanted a GOOD, DECENT, SINGLE-PAYER SYSTEM and not his lump of s***.
A longstanding priority of the late senator Edward M. Kennedy, it was supposed to function as a self-sustaining voluntary insurance plan, open to working adults regardless of age or health.
Workers would pay an affordable monthly premium during their careers and could collect a modest daily cash benefit of at least $50 if they became disabled later in life. The money could go for services at home or to help with nursing home bills.
But a central design flaw dogged CLASS.
Didn't anyone read the f***ing thing before it was shoved up our ass?
Unless large numbers of healthy people willingly sign up during their working years, soaring premiums driven by the needs of disabled beneficiaries would destabilize it, eventually requiring a taxpayer bailout.
Oh, ONLY BANKS get BAILED OUT with OUR MONEY, huh?
Un-f***ing-believable!!
After months of insisting that that could be fixed, Sebelius acknowledged Friday that she didn’t see how....
Officials said they discovered they could not make CLASS both affordable and solvent while keeping it a voluntary program open to virtually all workers, as the law required. The law also mandated that the administration certify CLASS would remain financially solvent for 75 years before it could be put into place....
In other words, they never intended to take care of old folks at all.
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"Demise of Obama long-term care plan leaves gap" October 24, 2011|Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Associated Press
It’s the one major health expense for which nearly all Americans are uninsured. The dilemma of paying for long-term care is likely to worsen now that the Obama administration pulled the plug on a program seen as a first step.
The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program, or CLASS, was included in the health overhaul law to provide basic long-term care insurance at an affordable cost. But financial problems dogged it from the outset.
Those concerns prompted the administration to announce that CLASS would not go forward. Yet it could take a decade or longer for lawmakers to tackle the issue again, and by then the retirement of the Baby Boomers will be in full swing.
Most families don’t plan for long-term care. Often the need comes unexpectedly: an elder takes a bad fall, a teen is calamitously injured in a car crash or a middle-aged worker suffers a debilitating stroke.
Nursing home charges can run more than $200 a day and a home health aide averages $450 a week, usually part-time. Yet Medicare doesn’t cover long-term care, and only about 3 percent of adults have a private policy....
The irony, experts say, is that paying for long-term care is the kind of problem insurance should be able to solve. It has to do with the mathematics of risk.
Most drivers will have some kind of accident during their years behind the wheel, but few will be involved in a catastrophic wreck. And some very careful drivers will not experience any accidents.
The risks of long-term care are not all that different, says economist Harriet Komisar of the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute.
“A small percentage of people are going to need a year, two years, five years or more in a nursing home, but for those who do, it’s huge,’’ Komisar said. “Insurance makes sense when the odds are small but the financial risk is potentially high and unaffordable.’’
Komisar and her colleagues estimate that nearly 7 in 10 people will need some level of long-term care after turning 65. That’s defined as help with personal tasks such as getting dressed, going to the toilet, eating, or taking a bath.
Many of those who need help will get it from a family member....
For those who do need extended nursing home care, Medicaid has become the default provider, since Medicare only covers short-term stays for rehab. But Medicaid is for low-income people, so the disabled literally have to impoverish themselves to qualify, a wrenching experience for families.
Liberals say the answer is government-sponsored insurance, like the CLASS plan the Obama administration included in the health overhaul law, only to find it wouldn’t work financially.
The administration was unable to reconcile twin goals of CLASS: financial solvency and affordable coverage easily accessible to all working adults, regardless of health.
Conservatives have called for private coverage, perhaps with tax credits to make it more affordable.
Some experts say it will take a combination of both approaches.
“It almost has to be,’’ said Robert Yee, a financial actuary hired by the Obama administration to try to make CLASS work.
Lower-income workers probably would never be able to afford private insurance, Yee explained. And a lavish public plan is out of the question....
Because HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES will be STRIPPED of PROFITS!
That's the ONLY HEALTH politicians in Washington care about.
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Related: Why You Will Love the New Health Law
