On Monday May 20, the first public hearing of my lawsuit against Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear takes place in Frankfort. What follows is a quick post to explain what's up.
ObamaCare remains ubiquitous as the biggest scandal of the present Administration in Washington D.C., even as Benghazi, IRS/Tea Party and spying on the Associated Press catch fire. The federal takeover of our healthcare system dwarfs all other conflagrations.
A key gambit in the federal effort involved getting the states to buy in and, essentially, do a lot of the dirty work for the feds in terms of on-the-ground implementation and financing of "health reform."
The strategy also seems to clearly involve giving federal officials someone else to blame when ObamaCare fails to meet its rosy expectations. The transparency of this strategy hasn't fooled very many people. In fact, of all the states only Kentucky rejected Obama's bid for re-election in 2012 but swallowed his health plan whole.
That means Kentucky has taken the bait to create a health insurance "exchange," an option under ObamaCare and has agreed to expand Medicaid, also an option as part of the United States Supreme Court ruling.
Governor Beshear implemented the exchange with a July 2012 executive order which was proper for a temporary reorganization of state government, but required subsequent legislative approval under KRS 12.028(2), which was never received.
When the 2013 General Assembly ended without the required legislative oversight having taken place, further development of the Kentucky Health Benefit "ObamaCare" Exchange became illegal.
When Gov. Beshear refused to follow the law, I filed suit against him in Franklin Circuit Court. Again, the first hearing is Monday. The public is invited to attend. We will be in Judge Phillip Shepherd's courtroom in the Franklin County Courthouse at 669 Chamberlain Avenue at 9:00 am on Monday May 20. Please join us and invite friends. The more eyeballs we have on this process, the better.
Also on Monday, I will file a second suit to halt Gov. Beshear's unilateral expansion of Medicaid in Kentucky. He cites KRS 205.520(3) as giving his Administration authority to do this without input from the people. And it does give him that authority. Here is the problem, though: passed in 1966 as HB 115, this piece of statute is unconstitutional under Section 2 of the Kentucky Constitution.
In short, when the legislature gave such authority to the governor they failed to recognize this form of absolute power was not theirs to give. It belongs to the people and we are going to Frankfort to get it back.
When Gov. Beshear railed against our effort to hold him accountable, telling us to "get over it," some of us were reminded of the last words of Goliath found in 1 Samuel 17:44: "And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field."
