Republican congressional candidate Matt Doheny is pleased that the Obama administration’s support for the long-term care plan known as the Community Living Assistance Services Support Act, or the CLASS Act, has been withdrawn.

Doheny, the Republican and Independence parties’ candidate in the 23rd Congressional District race in 2010, lost to Rep. Bill Owens, whom he is hoping to unseat next year.

The Watertown lawyer and venture capitalist says that “ObamaCare supporters were so desperate to sell their bill that they rigged the numbers.”

His complete statement follows:

DOHENY: CLASS FAILURE PROVES

OBAMACARE IS A SHAM AND MUST BE REPEALED

ObamaCare was built on a foundation of lies and faulty premises.

The administration finally learned last week what many have known since the beginning: A long-term health care program that was the cornerstone of this so-called reform was nothing more than an accounting gimmick.

ObamaCare supporters – like my opponent – could have seen the failure of the CLASS Act coming. It’s simple math.

CLASS would have been a voluntary government insurance program that offered long-term care to disabled people in return for small premiums.

There’s a fatal flaw – and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services figured it out six months before Bill Owens helped push ObamaCare over the finish line.

In order to provide the benefits promised - $50 per day – and keep the program fiscally sound, the average American would have had to pay up to $3,000 per month!

No one would do that.

Unfortunately, the funny math doesn’t stop here.

ObamaCare supporters were so desperate to sell their bill that they rigged the numbers. They front-loaded CLASS Act’s revenues, and back-loaded its costs.

The Congressional Budget Office said CLASS would take in $86 billion more than it paid out by 2021. That conveniently overlooked the fact that almost all of the program’s cost occur after that time.

Eighty-six billion is a significant number. It’s 40 percent of what ObamaCare supporters said would be a $210 billion deficit reduction in the first ten years. And now we know it was totally fake.

My opponent didn’t see it that way.

“This math in this bill is sound,” he said before voting for ObamaCare for the second time. [1]

Then Owens told the Watertown Daily Times that the CBO’s cost predictions “helped seal” his vote, citing “the report’s estimate that the legislation will reduce the federal budget deficit.” [2]

Did Bill Owens help sell this lie to the American public? Or did he fail to do the research that would have told him these savings weren’t real?

It’s time to stop this madness.

CLASS is stopped, but it’s not yet dead. President Obama has vowed to fix the program. But the only legitimate way to make CLASS work is to turn it into yet another entitlement – which overextends the reach of our government and wastes taxpayers’ money.

We can’t let that happen. Congress must work toward its repeal and the repeal of ObamaCare.

CLASS was dropped because it couldn’t prove itself to be fiscally sound past the government’s 10 year projections. We should hold ObamaCare to that same standard.

[1] “Statement of Rep. Owens on Health Care Reform,” http://owens.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=177313

[2] “Owens Will Vote ‘Yes’ Again on Health Care,” Watertown Daily Times. March 20, 2010. http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20100320/BLOGS09/100329992/-1//BLOGS09