The following excerpt is from an editorial that appeared in the Washington Times on April 1, 2010 titled “Robbing Peter to pay Paul” and it discusses the Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act. (See http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/apr/01/robbing-peter-to-pay-pauls-health-care/)
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
“Obamacare is a socialist law designed to take money from some Americans and use it to benefit others. The health care bill signed into law by President Obama is full of hidden time bombs. One costly provision buried in the lengthy reconciliation bill at the last minute has taxpayers covering long-term at-home care for the elderly. Through the so-called Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act (CLASS Act), Americans will find between $150 and $250 taken out of their paychecks each month to cover this program nobody knew about.”
If you visit the white House’s official website and read the description of the CLASS Act, you would think it was all great and good. The Act is described as a voluntary program where no tax payer funding is used to pay for it. What could be better than that!
Stephen A. Moses is president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform. He analyzed the Act and had many points to make about it, dispelling the outwardly optimistic upbeat view the White House and Democrats want you to believe. (See http://www.mcknights.com/class-caveats/article/167454/)
Three glaring untruths about C.L.A.S.S. are:
“- C.L.A.S.S. is not “voluntary.” Every worker is involuntarily and automatically opted into the program. Each employee or self-employed person must willfully opt out to avoid the program’s large “premiums” that will otherwise accrue by default.
- Second C.L.A.S.S. is not “insurance” by any stretch of the imagination. Insurance is for healthy people who want to prepare responsibly for the relatively small possibility they may become disabled or chronically ill. CLASS is more accurately described as pre-payment of care subsidized by the insurable for the benefit of the uninsurable. Charity in other words.
- Finally, C.L.A.S.S. will be promoted as a program for chronically ill seniors as well as for the disabled, but it is predominantly a program to benefit the working disabled. CLASS benefits, even if they are paid at something approaching the most optimistically anticipated rates, hardly will make a dent in the cost of long-term care for the elderly.”
Steven Moses goes on to identify numerous fundimental problems with the program that prove it to be another fiscally unsustainable entitlement program, just what we need!
As the days pass and Obamacare is examined, more and more programs will come to light demonstarting this adinistrations move towards socialism and the redistribution of wealth. It is vitally important not to fall for the propoganda push that posses as advertising for the CLASS Act. See it for what it is and stay resolved to repeal Obamacare in the future.
