“I come forth with a very different emphasis. I think the proper emphasis should be addressing the importance of long-term care in this country. I think we have failed to do that and the need is growing exponentially.
“We know that the national average cost of a private room in a nursing home is $70,000 per year and the average hourly rate for a home health aide is $25 per hour. We know that private insurance pays for only about 7 percent of all spending on long-term care. We know that a third of federal and state spending on Medicaid - $111 billion in 2009 - is on long-term care and this represents almost half of all spending on long-term care.
“We should recognize that the CLASS Act represented an effort to address this challenge. It’s clear it can’t be implemented at this time, but instead of repealing it we should work on replacing it. There’s been reference here to the need for bipartisan action. I think it is a mistake to proceed here on a basically partisan basis. We also need to remember that the overwhelming need in this Congress is not for more confrontation but to seek common ground. The effort to repeal is really a path of confrontation instead of seeking common ground. “
