Gleckman and Cohn on the CLASS Act News

The big disability law news of the weekend was HHS's widely anticipated decision, late on Friday, not to move forward with implementing the CLASS Act.  This is a shame, because there is a compelling need for a long-term care insurance program that (a) does not force families to impoverish themselves and go on Medicaid to receive services and (b) focuses on the provision of services in people's homes, not nursing homes.  The CLASS Act, for its undoubted flaws and limitations, met those two criteria.  Over at Kaiser Health News, Howard Gleckman, who has done a lot of great work on this subject, has a good post discussing possible policy alternatives that would rely on private insurance.  At the New Republic, Jon Cohn has a good article making the case that the CLASS Act's problems make the case for the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act, because mandated participation would have clearly solved the actuarial problems that led HHS to cancel the law.