HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Friday that the department is calling for a halt to the implementation of the CLASS Act ? a stunning end to the financially troubled long-term care insurance program and a major setback to the health care reform law.
In a letter to congressional leaders, Sebelius said the department did everything it could to find a way to make the program self-sustaining ? as the law requires it to be.
Continue ReadingBut the department?s analysis, she said, concluded that there was no way to do that.
?For 19 months, experts inside and outside of government have examined how HHS might implement a financially sustainable, voluntary and self-financed long-term care insurance program under the law that meets the needs of those seeking protection for the near term and those planning for the future,? Sebelius said in the letter. ?But despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time.?
After 19 months of research, "what we've determined is we do not have a path forward," Assistant Secretary for Aging Kathy Greenlee said on a conference call with reporters. The law requires Sebelius to certify that the program would be fiscally solvent for 75 years.
"She could not meet that threshold," Greenlee said.
In a memo explaining the decision, Greenlee wrote that the steps that would have been necessary to make the program solvent risked violating the letter of the law.
?As we take necessary steps to mitigate solvency risks, we concomitantly raise the legal risk that the plan could be found impermissible under the [health reform] statute,? the memo stated.
David Nather and J. Lester Feder contributed to this report.
This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 4:09 p.m. on October 14, 2011.
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