In a news dump late last Friday, the Obama administration was finally forced to face reality and admit that the long-term care program known as the CLASS Act, embedded within its signature health care law, was unworkable. Not that this was a surprise to anybody. Critics of the program repeatedly warned during the health care debate that it was fundamentally flawed, because the premiums it could realistically hope to collect would never be sufficient to cover the cost of anticipated benefits.
But Democrats charged ahead with it anyway, and assured the American people that the program was on firm financial footing. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., had even claimed it was “fully paid for” over decades. Though it was madness, there was method in it.
