[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 17 (Thursday, February 2, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S287-S288]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          REPEAL THE CLASS ACT

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to laud the 
actions of the House of Representatives which voted to repeal the CLASS 
long-term care entitlement program that was created by the health care 
law. The vote yesterday in the House of Representatives was 267 in 
favor of repeal. It was a bipartisan vote. It was a clear, I think, 
message that this is a piece of legislation that needs to be taken off 
the books.
  It was a disaster in the making from the very beginning. Many of us 
tried to predict that ultimately this program was destined to fail. The 
vote in the House of Representatives yesterday to repeal this insolvent 
program I hope will pave the way for the Senate to follow suit. My fear 
has been all along that if we do not get this program off the books, at 
some point there will be an attempt to resurrect it. That would be the 
absolute worst outcome and worst scenario for the American taxpayer 
because this is a program that, even before it was voted on and added 
to the health care bill, was predicted would fail.
  The Congressional Budget Office said it would run deficits in the 
outyears. The Actuary at the Health and Human Services Department 
predicted that this was a program that actuarially was unsound, could 
not be viable in the long run. It was here in the last few months that 
finally the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, 
came out and said, ``I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS 
implementation.''
  That was a statement she made back in the middle of October. So even 
the person who was tasked with implementing this program has now said 
there is no viable path forward for CLASS.
  We ought to get this off the books. It was, in fact, a pay-for in the 
health care bill. It was designed to help understate the cost of the 
health care bill. It front-end-loaded premiums, got revenue in the door 
early, knowing full well that when the demands for payments came later 
on that it was going to be upside down, and it was clearly a program 
that I think, by any account, all who observed this process closely 
knew just flat out this would not work. But what was done--it obscured 
the cost of the health care bill and helped it to sort of balance out 
because it was front-end loaded, saw revenues come in in the early 
years before payments would have to go out in the outyears.
  I am hopeful the Senate will take the action that was taken by the 
House of Representatives and end this once and for all. We have people 
on both sides of the aisle who have come to that conclusion. There was 
a lot of debate, even in the runup, the lead-up to the health care 
bill, about how this would not work. I offered an amendment during the 
health care debate to strip it. We had 10 Democrats at the time who 
voted with me on that amendment. Many of them made statements regarding 
this legislation and the implications if it were to pass. In fact, the 
Senator from North Dakota, the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, 
said at the time that this is ``a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the 
kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.''
  He vowed to block its inclusion in the Senate bill. It ended up in 
the Senate bill and ended up in the overall bill, so to this day it is 
still a part of the health care legislation but a part that needs to be 
stripped out if we are going to do what is in the best interests of

[[Page S288]]

the American taxpayer and not put yet another unfunded liability on the 
backs of our children and grandchildren.
  We have a lot of bipartisan support for repealing it. There are a lot 
of people who have weighed in against this, who know it will not work. 
We have an awful lot of outside interests as well who have observed, 
now, that this is not something that is sustainable over time. In fact, 
a lot of editorial pages around the country, newspapers have weighed in 
on this. The Washington Post:

     . . . a new gimmick that has been designed to pretend the 
     health reform is fully paid for.

  That is something they said back when this was being debated.
  The Wall Street Journal:

       Known by the acronym CLASS, the long-term care insurance 
     program for nursing homes and the like was grafted onto the 
     health-care bill mostly to hide that bill's true costs.

  It has been described as ``a budgetary time bomb.''
  It seems to make perfect sense to me, and I hope to many of my 
colleagues, that we take the steps necessary to get this program off 
the books once and for all. In trying to justify this, there are people 
who say we ought to keep it on the books in case we figure out a way to 
go forward with it, to implement it. It does not work. It cannot work. 
That has been known from the very outset.

  I want to mention something else the Actuary, Rick Foster, said prior 
to it being voted on. He said:

       Thirty-six years of actuarial experience lead me to believe 
     that this program would collapse in short order and require 
     significant federal subsidies to continue.

  I want to repeat that. This is from the person who studies the trends 
and makes sure, or tries to make sure, these programs are actuarially 
sound.

       Thirty-six years of actuarial experience lead me to believe 
     that this program would collapse in short order and require 
     significant federal subsidies to continue.

  That was the warning that was issued way before the vote ever 
occurred on the CLASS Act.
  He described it as `` . . . a classic `assessment spiral' or 
`insurance death spiral.' '' Those are words he used to describe this.

       The program is intended to be ``actuarially'' sound but at 
     first glance this goal may be impossible.

  These were all statements made by the Actuary.
  Those of us who were here at the time and were concerned about this 
being included in the health care bill came to the floor and, as I 
said, I offered an amendment to strip it. It came close to getting the 
necessary votes but unfortunately came short. It had broad bipartisan 
support but we recognized at the time this thing was destined to fail. 
Now we have all this, the studies that have been done since, that 
validate that by the objective third-party validators, if you will, by 
the HHS Actuary.
  It seems to me at least that the American taxpayers, the American 
people deserve to know where their elected officials stand on the CLASS 
Act. Are they for keeping this unviable, insolvent, actuarially unsound 
provision in the health care bill, which now even those who are tasked 
with implementing it--the Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen 
Sebelius--have said there is no viable path forward for its 
implementation? Are we going to continue to keep this around? Or are we 
going to have a vote here in the Senate to put an end to this once and 
for all?
  I hope the majority leader, Senator Reid, will allow us to get this 
up for a vote. It has been passed in the House of Representatives. It 
is very clear based on not only all the actuarial evidence but all 
those who have looked at it who are tasked with trying to put it into 
practice that it is not going to work. I hope before this goes any 
further we will get a vote here in the Senate that will echo what 
happened in the House of Representatives and that we will do the right 
thing by the American taxpayer and get rid of a program that, if it 
ever is resurrected, if it ever is reincarnated in some form, would be 
a terrible drain on American taxpayers, not only today but well into 
the future, and represent yet another unfunded liability that we will 
put on the backs of our children and grandchildren. It is time to end 
the CLASS Act once and for all.
  I am going to continue to press for a vote on this and I hope 
Majority Leader Reid will allow us to get a vote on repeal of the CLASS 
Act so the American people do know exactly where their elected 
officials stand and whether they are going to stand on the side of the 
taxpayer, stand on the side of common sense, or stand on the side of 
using this budgetary gimmick to understate the cost of the health care 
bill and perhaps at some point in the future put a plan in place that 
literally is not going to work, is only going to continue to lead us on 
the pathway to bankruptcy.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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