December 16, 2009

Letters to the Editor
Washington Post
1150 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20071

To the Editor:

The CLASS Act is an unsustainable program that will add to our nation’s deficit (“Long-Term Care Program is Fiscally Sound”, December 15, 2009) . This is not the opinion of the insurance industry; it is a fact found in analyses of the CLASS Act by two independent government agencies.

The Congressional Budget Office said that starting in 2029 the program would add to the deficit “by amounts on the order of tens of billions of dollars for each 10-year period.” And the chief actuary at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of HHS, said the program would start to accrue a deficit in 2025.

The non-partisan Concord Coalition and the American Academy of Actuaries also have raised similar concerns about the CLASS Act’s long-term sustainability.

Addressing Americans’ long-term care needs is a serious issue that will require financially sound and responsible public policy solutions. The CLASS Act does not meet this criteria.

Sincerely,

Frank Keating

Frank Keating is president of the American Council of Life Insurers. He is also the former two-term governor of Oklahoma.