Letter to the Honorable Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services

Congressman Denny Rehberg (MT-AL), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the Department of Health and Human Services, has contacted HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius requesting additional information related to the Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act (or CLASS Act) which was passed as part of Obamacare a year ago. Secretary Sebelius is scheduled to testify before Rehberg's subcommittee on Friday, April 1, 2011.

"Obamacare was written behind closed doors by a small group of powerful individuals who presented their bill to the American public as a finished take-it-or-leave-it product," said Rehberg. "Secretary Sebelius was one of the people in that room, and now that the American people are starting to find out what's in this thing, they deserve to know what Secretary Sebelius knew and when she knew it."

As indicated by the letter below, questions have been raised about the sustainability of the CLASS Act, which establishes a new entitlement program for long-term care. Like all entitlements when they were first created, this one generates revenue in the short-term, but the long term outlays suggest the program is ultimately unsustainable.

Recent statements from the Department of Health and Human Services suggest that the shortcomings of the CLASS Act were well known long before the bill was signed into law. Rehberg's letter asks for clarification and supporting documentation -- much of which has not been made available to anyone but the original authors of Obamacare.

"We need to know about the shortcuts and compromises Obamacare made for the sake of political expediency," said Rehberg. "Ideally, we should have known before this law was passed, but since that didn't happen, we need to know sooner rather than later. This isn't about politics. This is about doing the right thing for our children."

Rehberg's letter, below, requests the documents no later than Friday, March 25.

Dear Secretary Sebelius:

Pursuant to Rules X and XI of the United States House of Representatives, I am writing to request answers to questions and documents related to the Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) Act, which passed Congress last year as part of Public Laws 111-148 and 111-152, prior to your appearance before the House Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee on April 1, 2011.

Earlier this week, in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, you were asked to provide information about your department's study of the CLASS Act prior to its passage into law. In the hearing, Senator John Thune (SD) posed a number of questions that were not fully answered and are of interest to me on this subject. I am requesting written answers and supporting documents to the following questions and would appreciate receipt no later than March 25, 2011.

1. Was your public statement in February that the CLASS Act is "totally unsustainable" as it was written in the law based on actuarial models or other statistical analysis developed within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)?

2. Was Richard Frank, the Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department's Office of Planning and Evaluation, correct when he told House and Senate Republican staffers in a March 4, 2011 briefing that HHS conducted its first actuarial analysis of the CLASS program before the law was enacted?

3. Did your Department's actuarial or modeling analyses of the CLASS program, made in early 2010 before the law's enactment, also indicate that the program was unsustainable, as you publicly stated last month?

4. Did you share the results of your early 2010 analysis with any officials outside of the Department, for instance, White House, Office of Management and Budget, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, who had the ability to influence the CLASS language in the bill prior to its enactment? And if so, with whom?

5. If the analysis in early 2010 revealed significant questions about the CLASS program's solvency, why did your Department not raise these concerns publicly at that time -- so Members of Congress could know about the CLASS program's problems before voting to approve the law?

6. Has the Administration or your Department proposed any legislative changes to address solvency concerns? If so, which changes, when were they proposed and to whom were they delivered?

Furthermore, I request that you provide the subcommittee with the following documents:

1. The Department's actuarial modeling that occurred prior to passage of the bill in 2010 as referred to by Richard Frank on March 4, 2011.

2. The specific legislative changes referred to by Assistant Secretary Kathy Greenlee in her written testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 17, 2011, when she stated "many of the changes proposed to the Senate health reform bill that would have improved the CLASS program's financial stability were not included in the final legislation."

3. Any opinions of the General Counsel on why the legislative proposals mentioned by Assistant Secretary Greenlee were needed.

4. Any opinions of the General Counsel stating why the legislative proposals referred to by Assistant Secretary Greenlee are now not needed.

5. Any opinions, statements, analyses or recommendations made prior to final passage of the bill by your actuaries, other Department staff, or other federal agencies and contractors relating to why the legislative proposals mentioned by Assistant Secretary Greenlee were needed or desirable to improve the CLASS program's financial stability or actuarial soundness.

6. Any documents, emails, memoranda, or opinions dated any time from December 24, 2009 through March 23, 2010 that discuss the CLASS Act.

7. Any analyses of the flexibilities that you believe exist to allow the Department a legal ability to make the CLASS language fully self-sustainable.

Thank you in advance for the timely reply. I look forward to reviewing the requested information and to follow-up discussions at the April 1, 2011 scheduled House Appropriations Subcommittee hearing.

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