"The House on Wednesday evening voted to repeal a section of the 2010 health reform law establishing a voluntary, long-term healthcare program that the Obama administration has since said is not financially viable. Members voted 267-159 in favor of the bill, H.R. 1173, which repeals the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program. While 28 Democrats joined Republicans in support of the bill, House passage sends the bill to a Democratic Senate that is expected to ignore the bill completely."
"CLASS stands for Community Living Assistance Services and Supports. It would have paid $50 a day — $18,250 a year — for long-term care services for anyone who had paid premiums for five years. Participation was voluntary, and it was inevitable that the program would attract older, sicker people, sending CLASS into a death spiral. Some estimates concluded premiums would have had to be $3,000 a month for the program to break even. Any takers?"
"The House Ways and Means Committee voted Wednesday to repeal the healthcare law’s controversial CLASS program, clearing the way for a floor vote next month. Only one committee Democrat — Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) — broke party lines to vote in favor of repeal. Three Democrats voted for repeal when the Energy and Commerce Committee passed the CLASS repeal bill in November."
"Programs designed to cut Medicare spending and improve the quality of healthcare have mostly failed, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The findings are a blow to existing Medicare projects as well as a key goal of the healthcare reform law."
"Another ObamaCare provision is falling on its face, but this is one that hardly anyone even knew existed. Part of the law called for the creation of “Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans” (CO-OPs). The law originally appropriated $6 billion to set up these plans in all 50 states. It created an entirely new section of the Internal Revenue Code (Sect 501-C-29) to allow this new type of member-operated organization to be tax-exempt. They were intended to be sort of like the “public option” the Democrats wanted to compete with private insurance plans."
"The healthcare law’s program for early retirees is an example of the law’s broader flaws, House Republicans charged Wednesday. Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee criticized the way the Obama administration handled the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program (EERP). The Health and Human Services Department announced last week that nearly all of the EERP’s $5 billion budget had been spent and the program would shut down at the end of the year."
"The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted 33-17 to repeal the healthcare reform law's long-term care CLASS Act on Wednesday, setting up a possible vote by the full House by year's end. Democrats stayed largely united in support of the program, which the Obama administration has put on hold because it says it can't find a way to make it solvent. Only three Democrats - Reps. Jim Matheson (Utah), Mike Ross (Ark.) and John Barrow (Ga.) - voted to repeal the program; all three had voted against the healthcare reform law last year."
"Before ObamaCare's state-based high risk pool program—the pre-existing condition insurance plan (PCIP)—went into effect, critics (including me) warned that enrollment in the program would run high and that as a result the program would go over budget. In California, at least, it turns out that prediction was half wrong. Enrollment in the program is much lower than expected. But program administrators are now worried it might go over budget anyway."
"Congress and President Barack Obama agreed this summer that widening deficits and growing debt threaten our economic future, and something must be done to get our nation’s fiscal house in order. A good start would be to agree to delay initiating the new spending in the Affordable Care Act so that a broader and more stable bipartisan consensus can be built around fiscally sustainable entitlement and tax policy."
"A $5 billion fund created as part of the health-care overhaul to pay for health insurance for early retirees will run out of money by September 2012, according to a federal report released Monday... The money was supposed to be available through the end of 2013."
