Zombie' in the budget: long-term health care plan

today.msnbc.msn.com...

I am surprised that no one else has picked up on this, however, I realize this is probably not really a new issue. It just makes me a little leery when they start adding the term "zombie" to any government document, haha. In all seriousness though perhaps this is something to be concerned about.

It's a long-term care plan the Obama administration has put on hold, fearing it could go bust if actually implemented. Yet while the program exists on paper, monthly premiums the government may never collect count as reducing federal deficits. Real or not, that's $80 billion over the next 10 years.

"It's a gimmick that produces phantom savings," said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that advocates deficit control.. "That money should have never been counted as deficit reduction because it was supposed to be set aside to pay for benefits," Bixby added. "The fact that they're not actually doing anything with the program sort of compounds the gimmick."

"They've shelved it, but they're keeping it around," said Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont. "The only logical reason I can see is that they need the money — even though there is no money there — to make Obamacare work." Absolutely not, says the administration. "We are looking at the CLASS program from every angle," Kathy Greenlee, assistant HHS secretary for aging, blogged recently. "We are doing our due diligence." The administration will soon release a report with recommendations about how to proceed, she added.

Don't expect CLASS to go away easily. If the congressional supercommittee tackling the debt decides to recommend repeal, the panel would have to come up with about $80 billion in other cuts — possibly real and painful — to offset the hypothetical savings from CLASS.

Im not quite sure what to think about this, but from the looks of it, its not a good thing. I am researching it a little more, because Im not quite sure I understand the logistics surrounding it.Also, I think that since the program has been shut down, the administration won't admit that it's been it because if they did, they'd lose roughly $80 billion of ObamaCare's deficit reduction.,It seems to me that they may be hiding something else in this particular program.
I did manage to find this about the plan:
reason.com...

Here’s how the program works (or rather how it doesn’t): Workers pay into the program at regulated rates determined by bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services, which will be prohibited from taking individual health history into account. For the poor, the rate is set at a flat rate of $5 per month, adjusted for inflation over time. Workers who pay in for five years and develop difficulty with daily living will then be eligible for a cash benefit of a minimum of $50 each day to spend on care—a benefit designed to rise with inflation. There’s no limit to the amount of cash the benefit can pay out, and it lasts as long as the beneficiary is alive and eligible. The Obama administration claims the program is only for those who want to join, but that’s true only in the strictest sense. According to John Inglehart, a founding editor of the health policy journal Health Affairs, “all adult Americans would effectively be ‘nudged’ into joining” the program. It’s technically voluntary, in other words, but the Obama administration is already convinced that everyone will want to join. On the other hand, maybe they will! After all, the biggest problem with the program is that the benefits it’s projected to pay out vastly exceed the premium revenues it’s expected to collect. Plenty of beneficiaries (though not all), then, stand to more than make their money back.

That's what happens when you pass the bill before you know what's in it the zombies are those who passed that monstrosity and they knew this.

Ah great another IOU program just like the big three ss,medicare and medicaid promise the people everything and deliever them nothing.

This adminstrion has a two big thumbs down on my worthless meter.

All this is creative government shell game financing.

reply to post by Veritas1


I am sorry... I have to scoff at the entire premise of these "deficit reduction" plans. They complain about how an 80 billion dollar cut to a program is going to be "deep and painful" when our budget deficit is at 1.6 Trillion.

The budget problem is never going to be resolved until we clearly define the role of government in our lives. If we want things like Obamacare, we are going to have to simply get rid of the free market and go to complete socialism. May as well start chipping and drugging people to make the hivemind practical for humans. It's about as practical and sustainable of a plan as continuing with socialism on top of a semi-free market.

If we don't want that - we need to dissolve the Federal Reserve, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Welfare, and many GSEs like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (or get rid of government backing for them). Then, greatly de-regulate the markets (as it will no longer be necessary to keep businesses from taking unfair advantage of government subsidies).

reply to post by neo96


Here you go neo96. This is just for you, since your post was spot on....