# No CLASS Obama! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 15, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769 "2011-10-15T23:32:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/21 "2011-10-16T02:54:52Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > So now the administration has announced the proposed long term care package in the health care law is cancelled. > > Apparently it’s unworkable. > > My fifth grade son accurately identified the problem with the program when it’s provisions were described to him. > > I wonder if the White House is hiring? I agree the Obama health care plan is flawed. I also think the health care system that existed before his plan was flawed. I think it’s still an open question which system had worse flaws overall. But either way, the solution is obvious - we should create a system that’s better than what we had then and what we have now. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/22 "2011-10-16T03:10:40Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > If this is part of the CLASS Act, then it has been successfully implemented. It is an ‘if possible’ clause to regulate the plans, and no plan turned out to be possible. Assuming an unambiguous definition of ‘solvent’ this is an indication of something very rare, a well written law. If it’s not in the Act, well then, nevermind. It is in the Act. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/23 "2011-10-16T03:25:23Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I agree the Obama health care plan is flawed. I also think the health care system that existed before his plan was flawed. I think it’s still an open question which system had worse flaws overall. But either way, the solution is obvious - we should create a system that’s better than what we had then and what we have now. Yes but we paid at least a 150,000 per Senator and Congressman (plus staff) to put together a viable program. All we got for that salary is focus group fed teleprompter speeches and 3 years of multi-trillion dollar debt. Were is the accountability? Pelosi blessed the recent protests about corporate incompetence but she’s the poster child of stupid. We called it Obamacare but he was just the cheerleader for that mess. It was written by Congress. CONGRESS wrote that bill. Congress was told long before the banking collapse that the derivative market was unfunded. Congress was told Fannie Mae was a train wreck. It’s time we stopped listening to the status quo eqo-fucks that dominate both houses and both parties and demand accountability. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/24 "2011-10-16T03:49:38Z")
1. The “left” wanted rational single-payer health care. 2. The “right” saw an opportunity to further enrich insurance and pharma at taxpayer expense. 3. The Democrats voted for the Republican-designed plan, thinking to please voters. 4. The Republicans voted against their plan, but let it pass, enjoying the profit but not the blame. Final score: A. Republicans – Evil but clever. B. Democrats – Stupid beyond words. C. American people – Losers once again. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/25 "2011-10-16T04:24:11Z")
> [@](#): > > Yes but we paid at least a 150,000 per Senator and Congressman (plus staff) to put together a viable program. All we got for that salary is focus group fed teleprompter speeches and 3 years of multi-trillion dollar debt. Were is the accountability? Well, the Democrats worked for their pay. The Republicans, however, not only didn’t even want to vote, they by their own admission didn’t even bother reading the thing. Why are we paying them even that paltry salary, if they’re not even going to pretend to do their jobs? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/26 "2011-10-16T05:18:31Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 1. The Republicans voted against their plan, but let it pass, enjoying the profit but not the blame. Your argument is stupid and has an almost religious disregard for evidence or common sense. Is there _anything_ the Republicans could have done that would convince you that they didn’t support Obama’s plan? Voting to a man against it apparently wasn’t enough. Would they have to resort to open warfare, or would you still find some ludicrous excuse to blame them for the Democrats’ screwup? > [@Chronos](#): > > The Republicans, however, not only didn’t even want to vote, they by their own admission didn’t even bother reading the thing. Which is worse, to not be given enough time to read a new 2,000 page bill and thus choose to vote against the changes, or to pretend you had read it, vote for something you don’t understand, and then get blindsided by its blatant flaws? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/27 "2011-10-16T06:58:45Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Given that the poster you are quoting received a Warning for the post you quoted, what made you think it was a good idea to continue posting insults? Since you asked, I replied immediately to the post in question and hadn’t read anything following, including your warning. I wasn’t disregarding it so much as was unaware of it. Which is not to say I’m contesting your warning to me. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/28 "2011-10-16T07:06:04Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > Since you asked, I replied immediately to the post in question and hadn’t read anything following, including your warning. I wasn’t disregarding it so much as was unaware of it. Which is not to say I’m contesting your warning to me. Actually, that’s plausible. Warning rescinded. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/29 "2011-10-16T07:24:39Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Your argument is stupid and has an almost religious disregard for evidence or common sense. Is there _anything_ the Republicans could have done that would convince you that they didn’t support Obama’s plan? Voting to a man against it apparently wasn’t enough. Would they have to resort to open warfare, or would you still find some ludicrous excuse to blame them for the Democrats’ screwup? > Which is worse, to not be given enough time to read a new 2,000 page bill and thus choose to vote against the changes, or to pretend you had read it, vote for something you don’t understand, and then get blindsided by its blatant flaws? I don’t understand why everyone acts like reading takes such a long time. Especially in a bill where a lot of the text is procedural and can be skimmed. It’s not as if they had only twenty-four hours to read it or something, AFAIK. It’s also not as if everyone had to read all of it. Just do what you did in school when you worked in a group: have each person read a small amount, and then summarize it for everyone else. Throw in some redundancy if you are afraid some people will misinterpret. Maybe even have the one fast reader with nothing to do read it all the way. A 2,000 page document is not a big deal for 39 people, let alone 280 (or even 329) people. Especially when it’s their–you know–job. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/30 "2011-10-16T12:02:39Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > The failure of CLASS means that some of the other spending provisions of Obamacare are not offset by the savings of CLASS. But it doesn’t mean anything more than that. And this was largely predicted by the administration – it was Judd Gregg who demanded the 2075 self-sustaining provision. What it should show is that a program depending on voluntary participation cannot be guaranteed to be fiscally solvent - that mandatory participation, whether by mandatory purchases of insurance or, more cost-effectively, simple taxation in a single-payer system is the only responsible approach. Why the Republican partisans are gloating about the failure of an approach that was selected to be in accordance with their own philosophy and policy proposals is for them to explain, which is something that has not yet happened in this thread. There’s a simple and obvious explanation for it, certainly, but it still would be disheartening to see it confirmed yet again. > [@](#): > > This debate would be a lot better off if instead of pretending to be smarter than the actual policymakers, member of the public actually took the time to learn about the issues. One can always dream. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/31 "2011-10-16T13:28:08Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Which is worse, to not be given enough time to read a new 2,000 page bill and thus choose to vote against the changes, or to pretend you had read it, vote for something you don’t understand, and then get blindsided by its blatant flaws? Just so we’re clear, neither of those sides of your hypothetical reflect reality. The Republicans had weeks to read the bill; you’re buying their propaganda that they had a short amount of time to read the final bill, when all you need to read is the relatively minor changes between the version you’d already read and the new version. And, the Administration and everyone else was aware of the problematic nature of CLASS – some in the Senate wanted it to be a more efficient Medicare style entitlement, others wanted it to be self-sustaining. The self-sustainers won, but discovered it wouldn’t work, so it got cancelled. No one was blindsided – that’s pure libertarian mythology, like so much of the hot air thrown around about policymaking. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/32 "2011-10-16T13:45:52Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Clearer than before but now I have a new question. Do you have something you’d like to debate? > [@tomndebb](#): > > **Bricker** , did you actually have a point to debate on this issue? > > [/Moderating] Yes. Again, I thought the debate topic was made clear by inference, but to state it explicitly: the inherent flaws of the CLASS Act are so obvious that a fifth grader (admittedly an unusually gifted one, but a child nonetheless) could identify them. The obvious inferences are that the adults responsible for drafting the scheme should have been able to reach similar conclusions and avoid the problem by never passing it. It’s true that the law included a provision requiring the Secretary of HHS to certify the financial viability of the scheme before becoming effective. But given the fact that lack of financial viability under these terms was a foregone conclusion, the passage of the law was an exercise in futility. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/33 "2011-10-16T13:55:03Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > You can congratulate your kid for identifying the problem that the administration itself identified, which is the reason the law was written how it was (to require that the actuarial calculations say it would be self-sustaining through 2075 in order to be implemented). > > Maybe you could ask your kid to do something the administration couldn’t, like come up with a solution to this real problem? > > Do you imagine he’ll say that we should let those who need long-term care rot if they failed to make private arrangements for it? I doubt it. Perhaps he’ll say that Medicare should continue to try to pick up the slack inefficiently? But then he’ll be on the hook for a bigger deficit when he’s your age. > > I sure hope he can work this one out. This discussion occurred over dinner last night, sparked by this news. His opinion was that this was identical to the story of the grasshopper and the ants, and that it wasn’t fair for the ants to give up their summer fun and work while the grasshopper pays and yet the grasshopper still gets to eat in the winter thanks to the ants’ hard work. As you guess, he also rejected the idea that people (or grasshoppers) should be left to rot. But then he said that perhaps the grasshopper should get the worst food and the coldest room in the nest, so he doesn’t rot but doesn’t get all the comforts of the ants’ hard work. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/34 "2011-10-16T14:06:13Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > As you guess, he also rejected the idea that people (or grasshoppers) should be left to rot. But then he said that perhaps the grasshopper should get the worst food and the coldest room in the nest, so he doesn’t rot but doesn’t get all the comforts of the ants’ hard work. That’s a bit of moral reasoning most of us can agree with in the abstract, so long as we assume that individual grasshoppers are basically in control of their ability to provide for themselves. And in practical effect, that’s basically what the current long-term care situation looks like for people who couldn’t afford or chose not to purchase private long-term care insurance – shitty conditions, but you don’t starve. But – putting aside the critical assumption about equality of opportunity, we can teach your son about that later – what would your son say if the grasshoppers are already eligible for an entrenched entitlement that provides mediocre care very inefficiently? Would he support sustaining that, or would he want to move to a more efficient version, even if it wasn’t self-sustaining, so long as it was cheaper than the current version? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/35 "2011-10-16T14:56:16Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. Again, I thought the debate topic was made clear by inference, but to state it explicitly: the inherent flaws of the CLASS Act are so obvious that a fifth grader (admittedly an unusually gifted one, but a child nonetheless) could identify them. The obvious inferences are that the adults responsible for drafting the scheme should have been able to reach similar conclusions and avoid the problem by never passing it. > > It’s true that the law included a provision requiring the Secretary of HHS to certify the financial viability of the scheme before becoming effective. But given the fact that lack of financial viability under these terms was a foregone conclusion, the passage of the law was an exercise in futility. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m still not seeing what the topic for debate is. ---
**Author:** ![Crawlspace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Crawlspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crawlspace)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/36 "2011-10-16T15:02:36Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > This discussion occurred over dinner last night, sparked by this news. > > His opinion was that this was identical to the story of the grasshopper and the ants, and that it wasn’t fair for the ants to give up their summer fun and work while the grasshopper pays and yet the grasshopper still gets to eat in the winter thanks to the ants’ hard work. > > As you guess, he also rejected the idea that people (or grasshoppers) should be left to rot. But then he said that perhaps the grasshopper should get the worst food and the coldest room in the nest, so he doesn’t rot but doesn’t get all the comforts of the ants’ hard work. This is not all together unexpected since 5th grade is still well within the age range where children parrot the political and moral philosophies of their parents. It’s typically not until they reach puberty that they begin to explore hypothetico-deductive reasoning on their own and start to embrace the fact that there are ‘shades of grey’, though of course some people never reach the latter point. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/37 "2011-10-16T15:03:49Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah, but what definition of “solvent” are they using? Go. to. your. room. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/38 "2011-10-16T15:07:41Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > We called it Obamacare Boy, talk about patricide then pleading mercy as an orphan :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/39 "2011-10-16T15:09:32Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes. Again, I thought the debate topic was made clear by inference, but to state it explicitly: the inherent flaws of the CLASS Act are so obvious that a fifth grader (admittedly an unusually gifted one, but a child nonetheless) could identify them. The obvious inferences are that the adults responsible for drafting the scheme should have been able to reach similar conclusions and avoid the problem by never passing it. > > It’s true that the law included a provision requiring the Secretary of HHS to certify the financial viability of the scheme before becoming effective. But given the fact that lack of financial viability under these terms was a foregone conclusion, the passage of the law was an exercise in futility. which is EXACTLY what happened with Solyndra. The budget office predicted the company would fold in September and it folded in … September. Either the WH employs psychics or there are government employees who are actually smarter than 5th graders. This is why Congress and the WH have such low approval numbers. It goes beyond unemployment figures. People in the real world understand what a budget is. They have to adhere to them at home as well as at work. We already know what happens when a person or a business goes over budget without running the numbers. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769/40 "2011-10-16T15:14:47Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Maybe it’s just me, but I’m still not seeing what the topic for debate is. Was the health care bill, known at the time to be financially non-viable, a political waste of time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-class-obama/599769.md?page=3)