On the recordFebruary 1, 2012
We have here one for the books. The Democrats offer a 100 percent private-sector solution to the most costly health care crisis affecting the American people, and Republicans want to repeal it. This is going to go down in history. The Obama administration is a victim of its own honesty. It, in good faith, put the CLASS Act into the health care bill knowing that we can't do without it. Then the administration looked carefully at the cost factors, and it did the right thing. It informed the Congress that it was suspending implementation of the CLASS Act. It certainly did not repeal it or ask for its repeal, nor should we. Here is why: the Medicare crisis before us, as I speak, is dwarfed by the long-term care crisis. We know it because that crisis, the CLASS crisis if you will, is already here. {time} 1740 That crisis, my friends, is long-term care. Who pays for it? We pay for it. We, the taxpayers, because Medicaid pays for it. They're coming at an increasing clip because the fact is that the number of Americans who are living longer, who don't have the resources themselves, grows exponentially. Government is now paying 100 percent. Let's look at the CLASS Act. That is a 100 percent privately financed plan. It means that we should all, not wait for long-term care to be needed when we would have to ask the government, through Medicaid, to pay for nursing home care. We should begin now to take care of our own long-term needs.…
