[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 16 (Wednesday, February 1, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S234]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, later this morning President Obama is 
scheduled to speak in Virginia on the economy. I have not seen the 
speech, but I expect he will not be talking about the negative impact 
his health care bill is already having on job creation, and I guarantee 
he will not be talking about one provision in particular, the CLASS 
Act, which the House of Representatives is voting to repeal today.
  Like so many of his policies, the CLASS Act has not turned out the 
way the American people were told it would. At the time of its passage, 
Americans were told it would be a long-term care cost saver. Proponents 
of the CLASS Act said it would account for nearly half of the deficit 
reduction they claimed the health care bill would somehow miraculously 
bring about.
  More recently, however, the administration has admitted that 
government officials knew their projections about the CLASS Act could 
not possibly be true. They knew it would not work as advertised. Yet 
the Obama administration went ahead with it anyway.
  In 2009, the Chief Medicare Actuary wrote that, based on his 36 years 
of actuarial experience, he believed the CLASS Act would ``collapse in 
short order, and require significant Federal subsidies to continue'' 
and that it would lead to what he called an insurance death spiral 
since only the sickest people would sign up, making it impossible for 
the program to remain solvent. Another health care policy official said 
that the program ``seemed like a recipe for disaster.''
  So last October the Obama administration was finally forced to admit 
what they refused to admit when the health care bill first passed: that 
the CLASS Act was indeed unsustainable. As HHS Secretary Sebelius put 
it, there is no viable path forward for the program. Yet for some 
reason the President is unwilling to follow through on that conclusion 
by his own administration. He opposes today's vote over in the House.
  Most people would conclude that the administration would support 
repealing a portion of the health care bill that they now acknowledge 
is not financially viable, but they would be wrong. Despite admitting 
this program is doomed to fail, the Obama administration refuses to 
take it off the books. This refusal is all the more remarkable given 
the fact that President Obama has repeatedly said he is willing to 
listen to critics of his health care bill if they come up with ways to 
improve it. When it comes to the CLASS Act, the President does not even 
appear to be willing to listen to himself.
  Well, it should be obvious what is going on here. The President is so 
determined to distract people from his own legislative record that he 
does not even want to have a conversation about it. He is so determined 
to convince people that the ongoing economic crisis is someone else's 
fault that he is acting as though the first 3 years of his Presidency 
never even happened. He refuses to admit the central role his policies 
have played in prolonging the economic mess we are in. Instead of 
leading, the President is biding his time, hoping the public will blame 
someone else for the jobs crisis. Instead of acknowledging the effects 
of his own policies, he is hoping he can change the subject. The 
problem is, the longer we wait to tackle these problems, the harder 
they will be to solve. And, frankly, most Americans think the President 
should be leading that charge, not avoiding it.
  In 2009, President Obama said that rising health care costs were the 
most pressing fiscal challenge we faced as a nation. Yesterday, the 
Congressional Budget Office said government health care costs will 
double over the next decade. So the verdict is in. The administration 
looked at an area that both parties agree was in critical need of 
reform, and they made it worse, and now they will not even admit it. 
Why? Because it interferes with the President's reelection strategy. If 
it is about him or his policies, he does not want to talk about it. And 
when it comes to the CLASS Act, it is easy to see why.
  So I would encourage our friends over in the House in their efforts 
today. I hope they send this bill over to the Senate with a strong 
bipartisan vote. If the President will not listen to his own advisers, 
let's hope he listens to Congress on the failures of his health care 
bill and in particular the failures of the CLASS Act.
  If we are going to replace the President's health care bill with the 
kind of commonsense reform that the American people want, repealing the 
CLASS Act is a good place to start. As the House is showing today, if 
the President refuses to act on this important issue, Congress will.
  I yield the floor.

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