Word: could
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...funded by premiums and would pay enrollees $50 or more per day if they became too disabled to perform normal daily activities like eating and bathing. Employers who chose to participate would sign up their employees, who would then have the ability to opt out. The cash benefits could be applied to nursing-home care, but in an effort to encourage enrollees to stay in their own homes, payouts could cover such things as wheelchair ramps and wages for home health care aides...
...major change is in eligibility. The original CLASS Act would have allowed nonworking Americans to enroll in the long-term-care plan if their spouse worked, which could have led to "adverse selection," attracting people to the program who were too disabled to hold a job and therefore sure to file claims. Of course, excluding these people also means that spouses who stay at home just to care for their children (or for other reasons) are excluded from eligibility. The House bill also did not include the 75-year solvency requirement. (See "The Year in Health...
...market the program, meaning participation will be low - the CBO says 5% of the population would sign up, the CMS actuary says 2.5%, and AAA says 6%. Such low participation would not allow risk to be spread out enough to keep premiums affordable; in that case, the program could end up in an "insurance death spiral," in which premiums are so high, only those who know they'll need coverage sign up, driving up premiums even further until they are unaffordable for everyone. And the premiums, which the CMS actuary has predicted would need to start at about...
Paul Van de Water, a longtime CBO analyst and now senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, says the CLASS Act doesn't have strong enough work requirements, which are intended to be a proxy for physical fitness. Americans who perform only seasonal work, for example, could qualify for the program. He adds that penalties for letting premium payments lapse are not strong enough. "The criticisms are absolutely true, but you design things the best you can. If we only did [legislation] that entailed no risk, I don't think we'd ever do much of anything...
...source adds that "it's of the utmost importance that new and specific rules" be adopted in Mexico for witness protection - and Bayardo's murder could prompt that reform. Described by officials as a "collaborating witness," Bayardo was arrested last year for allegedly taking $25,000 a month from the powerful Sinaloa cartel (headquartered in Mexico's northern Pacific state of Sinaloa) in exchange for information about police operations. Since then he had been providing crucial testimony not only regarding drug trafficking, but also about links between federal police bosses and Sinaloa capos...