The Community Living Assistance and Support Services (CLASS) Act is the Affordable Care Act section that would have had the most effect on private long-term care insurance (LTCI) companies, primarily by creating a voluntary worksite LTC benefits program.
However, officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) admitted in October that the CLASS program could not work financially. On November 15, Members of the health subcommittee at the House Energy and Commerce Committee officially repealed it.
But there are still other, narrower Affordable Care Act LTC provisions that are still being implemented.
The Affordable Care Act—the federal legislative package that includes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (2010) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010—is a huge piece of legislation with thousands of provisions.
Some of the most ambitious LTC provisions in the Affordable Care Act are in PPACA Title II, Subtitle E, in a section on "new options for states to provide long-term services."
That section is supposed to do three things. First, it is to create a "community first choice option," which is supposed to reward states for providing attendant services for people with disabilities who are eligible for Medicaid and are still living out in the community.
The second is to support state efforts to remove barriers to providing home and community-based services. The third is to expand funding for state aging and disability resource centers.