FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE— Oct. 18, 2011

‘Long-term insurance provision unworkable’

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ADMITS ONE OF ITS OBAMACARE COMPONENTS HAS FAILED  

ATLANTA— “Many predicted that the long-term insurance provision in the expensive and sweeping Obamacare law would be unworkable. Now an embarrassed Department of Health and Human Services concedes the critics are right with its announcement that it can’t provide assurances that the program would be solvent,” says Phil Kent, CEO of the American Seniors Association (ASA) representing millions of members nationwide.

“When President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats were adding this so-called Class long-term insurance entitlement to their healthcare legislation behind closed doors in 2010, they said this benefit program would generate savings,” Kent notes. “It was touted as normal insurance, funding benefits through premiums. But it seemed obvious that the program’s large structure meant that premiums could never cover costs. A senator managed to insert a provision stipulating that the Health and Human Services Department had to certify that the long-term insurance entitlement wouldn’t go broke over its 75-year life span. And try as hard as they could, the Obama pencil pushers couldn’t do it. They conceded defeat last Friday and pulled the program.”

“The American Seniors Association has long believed that long-term insurance should never have been part of the healthcare legislation— its revenues could never match expenditures. In fact, the Wall Street Journal editorially notes that ‘such a plan would cost as much as $3,000 per month, which no one would ever buy.’” Kent said.

“This of course is just one bad section of a bad law,” Kent says. “Congress needs to defund and repeal the disastrous law and start over. In the meantime, though, let’s hope the U.S. Supreme Court does everyone a favor in coming months by declaring the Obamacare law unconstitutional, thus saving Congress the time and trouble of driving a stake through its heart.”

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www.americanseniors.org