In his State of the Union address, President Obama said that repealing his health-care law would increase the deficit by $230 billion. While technically true according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, this statement is misleading.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is soliciting bids to promote the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program, a controversial long-term care insurance program established by ObamaCare.
The Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) program is an actuarially unsound and fiscally irresponsible misadventure by Congress. Congress should never have enacted this new government-run long-term care insurance program. It places CLASS participants at risk of benefit cuts and American taxpayers at great risk of being forced to bail out this poorly designed program. Congress should promptly repeal the CLASS program and then make a serious effort to address the problem of financing the long-term care of the nation’s population in the context of an overall reform of federal entitlements.
As the new health care entitlements approach full implementation over the next several years, the true costs of the law will become progressively clearer and they will further threaten the federal government’s deteriorating fiscal health.
If the 2010 election produced any conservative mandates, they are to create jobs and to rein in soaring spending and deficits. Republicans should begin implementing this agenda by extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and paring back a government that now spends a staggering $30,000 per household annually.