Known as CLASS, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program was a longstanding priority of the late Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.This was the law we had to pass to find out what was in it. Well, we're early in the process of finding out, and already a major chunk of it has been declared unworkable by the very people responsible for writing it.
Although sponsored by the government, it was supposed to function as a self-sustaining voluntary insurance plan, open to working adults regardless of age or health. Workers would pay an affordable monthly premium during their careers, and could collect a modest daily cash benefit of at least $50 if they became disabled later in life. The money could go for services at home, or to help with nursing home bills.
But a central design flaw dogged CLASS. Unless large numbers of healthy people willingly sign up during their working years, soaring premiums driven by the needs of disabled beneficiaries would destabilize it, eventually requiring a taxpayer bailout.
After months insisting that could be fixed, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, finally admitted Friday she doesn't see how.
And is that the strangest mechanism for repealing a law? Enabling a cabinet secretary to declare it null and void if she deems it unworkable? It's as if the President and the democratic congress fought over who would take responsibility for the thing, and they both lost.
Too much of that could destroy your credibility: Pelosi Left Out of Leaders Meeting on Super Committee
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