Experts have concluded, said Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., that "the CLASS program can't be operated without mandatory participation so as to ensure its solvency." Unless it is terminated, he said, "it poses a clear danger to the fiscal health of our budget and to the American taxpayer."The administration finally has come to the conclusion "that we knew even before the bill passed, that this was unsustainable, it was unworkable, it was fatally flawed," said the bill's sponsor, Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La.
Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the program would not be implemented as scheduled due to budgetary difficulties.
The program was long derided by opponents as emblematic of Obamacare as a whole. The CLASS Act looked financially sound in the standard ten-year budget window by collecting fees for a number of years before its actual implementation. However, once put into effect, CLASS would have quickly fallen into deficit and gone bankrupt.
Despite the Administration's own decision to halt CLASS implementation, it is Obama's position that it not be repealed. And for that reason, the repeal bill that the House passed likely won't get much traction in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
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