I have a new article in The Weely Standard on the recently canned part of Obamacare called CLASS:
CLASS (for Community Living Assistance Services and Supports) is a voluntary long-term care insurance program that hitched a ride on Obamacare. The program was set up to charge participants premiums for at least five years before they became eligible for benefits—meaning that, as the program commenced, there would be several years of premium collection before any meaningful expenditure.
This turned out to be awfully convenient timing for the White House, as it created the perception of a $70 billion, 10-year CLASS surplus that was used to make Obama-care’s overall books look better.
Counting CLASS in the Obamacare totals was an abuse for two reasons. First, as Ryan pointed out, the same dollar can’t be spent twice. But that’s exactly what the White House wanted to do. They said CLASS’s $70 billion surplus could be used both to pay for Obamacare and to liquidate CLASS Act obligations after ten years.
That was bad enough. But the problem was even worse because CLASS itself was a ticking budgetary time bomb, and the administration knew it.
You can read the whole article here.