SUPPORT THE CLASS ACT

Our nation has too long ignored the urgent need to address the emerging long-term services and supportscrisis facing seniors and younger persons with disabilities in a fiscally responsible manner that promotes independence, choice and helping families. Over 60 diverse national organizations have come to together to support the bipartisan CLASS Act (Community Living Assistance Services and Supports), which will soon be reintroduced. We urge you to contact Connie Garner with Senator Kennedy’s office at 224-6390 to become an original cosponsor.

Our current system forces people prematurely into institutions, requires many to spend-down into poverty before receiving the help they need, fails to provide realistic opportunities for personal responsibility, and fails to support families. America can and must do better. The CLASS Act addresses these problems, can receive broad support, and can provide a vehicle for our nation to come together to discuss the challenges we face in a meaningful, productive way. Key elements of the CLASS Act include:

  • A fiscally responsible approach that is designed to be budget neutraland restrain future Medicaid spending.
  • A structure that retains an important role for private insurance and promotes personal responsibility.
  • Voluntary participation in the kind of broad-based risk pool needed to keep it affordable.

To qualify for CLASS Act benefits, individuals must have contributed $30 in monthly premiums, through a voluntary payroll deduction (unless they choose to opt-out),for at least 5 years. Tier 1 benefits ($50/day) will be payable to individuals unable to perform 2 or more ADLs or have the equivalent cognitive impairment. Tier 2 benefits ($100/day) will be payable to individuals unable to perform 4 or more ADLs or have the equivalent cognitive impairment. These types of voucher payments avoid bureaucracies, and empower consumers by enabling them to control what services they get, how, where and from whom.

These benefit levels would respectively cover only about one-quarteror one-half of the current average cost of nursing home care, thereby retaining an important role for private insurance. This balanced public/private sector approach was supported by the 63 diverse members of Citizens for Long-Term Care, which included insurer and employer groups, chaired by former Republican Senator David Durenberger. The coalition agreed on a structure envisioned under the CLASS Act, with a broad-based public program that would “provide a minimum floor of protection in a way that is sufficiently flexible to best help families and disabled individuals meet their unique circumstances.“

The CLASS Act will help employers by providing support both to persons with disabilities to better enable them to work, and to working caregivers to help reduce absenteeism and maintain productivity. The proposal can also relieve some of the current pressure on employers to pay for part of the cost of long-term supports and services their employees’ families need.

We urge you to be an early supporter of the CLASS Act and play a lead role in engaging America in a discussion about solving a serious problem that has too long been ignored.

April 23, 2007