Kentucky health insurance secret ends Friday

Kentucky Department of Insurance officials confirm that 2014 individual health insurance rates will be approved by the end of this week. That comes six weeks after it became clear ObamaCare would blow up the state's health insurance market.

Expect a late Friday afternoon document dump and next week all kinds of ferocious spinning about how your own eyes are misleading you into thinking ObamaCare presents any kind of a problem.

Rhymes with "smallpox"

Gov. Steve Beshear was in Lexington today ripping on Kentucky citizens who have challenged his ObamaCare-related law breaking.

"I believe these critics are blinded by a disease that I would call knee-jerk partisan politics, and that disease clouds their vision and quite frankly sometimes wonder if it doesn't harden their hearts a bit," Beshear told the Lexington Herald Leader.

Xerox officials stood by quietly and smiled while Beshear poured out his absurd ObamaCare attacks. Under state statute KRS 12.028 the 100 Xerox jobs they were celebrating today can not exist because they were not legally authorized.

This matter is currently being litigated in Franklin Circuit Court.

Hold your nose: McConnell likes parts of ObamaCare

In one television interview, Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell managed to open up two cans of worms for himself on ObamaCare.

Better grab your nose.

"There are a handful of things in the 2,700-page bill that are probably are okay," Mitch told WYMT Hazard on Tuesday. Do tell, Senator, but please try to keep the waste in the hundreds of billions for the rest of us.

And speaking of waste, McConnell squanders more time distorting the effort to defund ObamaCare when he said "the problem with the bill that would shut down the government wouldn't shut down ObamaCare."

Senator McConnell, the bill supported by Senators Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz would prohibit federal spending on ObamaCare and destroy it too quickly for anyone to find out what parts of the law McConnell likes. The fact that mandates and taxes would stay on the books for a little while without any federal funding is a distinction without a difference if you are measuring distance between defunding and repealing.

Framing the debate as defunding the disastrous law in the current continuing resolution versus allowing the current spending plan to expire without a replacement is merely about buying time to unwind the law in an orderly fashion that works better for all Americans than stumbling on into the train wreck we are in no way ready for.

The truth Sen. McConnell doesn't want you to know is that his biggest campaign donors are perfectly happy with him making meaningless speeches about ObamaCare as long as he doesn't stop its implementation. That's what is really behind all this senatorial doubletalk.

Another example of Facebook replacing mainstream media

Under ObamaCare, Kentuckians face enormous 2014 health premium increases you would never know about if you depended on mainstream media for your news.

Today's example comes from Lexington Trailer & Hitch, whose Anthem renewal specified a 94% increase if they renew in 2014 and only a 10% increase if they renew early before ObamaCare hits.

We learned about this, of course, on Facebook:

And if you are wondering, off-cycle policy renewal is not available to individuals.

Huge crowd expected for ObamaCare hearing in Frankfort

Kentucky's Interim Joint Committee on Health and Welfare is still trying to cram ObamaCare down our throats, ignoring KRS 12.028(5) and its limits on the Governor's ability to re-issue expired executive orders that failed to achieve legislative ratification.

If you oppose ObamaCare and have the ability to join us at the State Capitol Annex at noon on Wednesday, August 21, the meeting will be in Room 129. Bring friends.

Activist: Beshear "has chosen the side of evil"

Kentucky Citizens Judicial President David Adams filed a lawsuit in state court yesterday challenging the constitutionality of a state law regulating health coverage options for Christians.

The case brings up issues about the proper role of government in healthcare just weeks before ObamaCare is supposed to take effect in Kentucky and around the nation.

"The Beshear Administration violating rights of Christians is nothing new, but us fighting back is," Adams said. "The Governor has chosen the side of evil in this fight and he will lose for several reasons, not the least of which is that we have the Constitution on our side."

Adams says Kentucky's Insurance Code effectively forbids a practice called "religious health sharing," an alternative to health insurance for people of faith. A decade long court battle to single out one such group of Christians ended last month with an agreement to let them practice their faith, but without resolving problems in the law.

"Kentucky's Constitution is unique in America in specifically prohibiting arbitrary application of the law and that is the most important fact in this case," Adams said. "You can't criminalize an activity as a government and then pick out some participants to grant special permission to proceed anyway. Western society has been fighting this kind of outrageous imperial behavior going back 800 years to the Magna Carta."

"Even the ObamaCare law gets out of the way of Christian health sharing for the most part. I don't know why Kentucky can't get this right, too," Adams said.

Governor Beshear has three weeks to respond to the lawsuit.

Suing for health freedom in Kentucky

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY

FRANKLIN CIRCUIT COURT

DIVISION ___

CASE NO. 13-CI-__________

 

DAVID ADAMS                                                                                           PLAINTIFF

 

v.                                                         COMPLAINT

 

COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY                                                   DEFENDANTS

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, Steven L. Beshear

OFFICE OF THE COMMISSIONER, DEPARTMENT OF INSURANCE,

Sharon P. Clark

Serve: Governor Steven L. Beshear

Office of the Governor

700 Capitol Avenue, Suite 100

Frankfort KY 40601

 

Serve: Commissioner Sharon P. Clark

Department of Insurance

215 W. Main

Frankfort KY 40601

Serve: Attorney General Jack Conway

Office of the Attorney General

700 Capitol Avenue, Suite 118

Frankfort KY 40601

___________________________________________________________________________

 

Plaintiff, David Adams, respectfully states as follows:

 

NATURE OF ACTION

This is a civil action for declaratory and injunctive relief relating to KRS 304.1-120(7), a statute regulating health insurance in the Commonwealth. Plaintiff seeks a declaration that this statute is unconstitutional in that it violates Sections 2 and 190 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Further, Plaintiff seeks a court order forbidding Defendants from enforcing the statute’s arbitrary provisions which limit Plaintiff’s clear understanding of rights under an agreement with a private corporation regulated by KRS 304.1-120(7). Attorney General Jack Conway is being served with a copy of this Complaint pursuant to KRS.418.075 in as much as the constitutionality of KRS. 304.1-120(7) is brought into question.

 

FACTS

Plaintiff is a citizen of the Commonwealth and a member of Samaritan Ministries, a religious health sharing organization purportedly exempted from state insurance regulation by KRS 304.1-120(7) and from federal mandates under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in Section 1501 of that law under the heading “Health Care Sharing Ministry.”

The federal PPACA law, in an attempt to expand healthcare coverage choices for Americans, makes few unnecessary restrictions on the ongoing operations of such health sharing groups. Kentucky law, however, declares these entities must have “no assumption of risk or promise to pay either among the participants or between the participants and the organization.”

These restrictions defeat the purpose of the health sharing organizations, which exist to limit personal liability for healthcare expenses by sharing mutual assumptions of risk and multiple payment agreements involving explicit promises to pay. Enforcement of state law in regard to this type of entity and arrangement has been haphazard and reckless, substantially depriving consumers fleeing government regulated insurance of a rational basis upon which to make risk management decisions and perpetuating an arbitrary and capricious application of state law in violation of the Section 2 prohibition of “absolute and arbitrary power” and the Section 190 limit on state regulation of corporations to “general laws” only.

Time is of the essence in resolving this issue because the PPACA is set to take full effect on January 1, 2014 with substantial premium increases in government-regulated health insurance and very limited alternatives such as religious health sharing for Kentucky consumers generally and Plaintiff specifically to properly manage healthcare costs. Lack of clarity in the application of the law is both expensive and needlessly hazardous.

ARGUMENT

Existing statute and case law combine to wreak havoc on the market for health coverage in the United States and in Kentucky. If followed to the letter, state law would eliminate the alternative of religious health sharing organizations in the Commonwealth, despite efforts on the federal and state level to preserve such alternatives for the benefits they provide to the health and welfare of their members, and the safety valve they form for consumers who would otherwise be trapped in the government-created and controlled system as it fails increasingly large segments of the population.

Plaintiff merely seeks clarity from government officials where precious little currently exists. The only way to achieve that is with a court ruling that KRS 304.1-120(7) unconstitutionally singles out and inhibits religious health sharing groups and their members from protecting themselves efficiently against the risk of large medical expenses. Such is certainly not within the bounds of any kind of public purpose envisioned by the legislature as the people’s representatives and therefore calls for swift action from the Court.

JURISDICTION

Jurisdiction is proper pursuant to KRS 418.040 and Kentucky Constitution Section 112 (5).

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

            Plaintiff seeks a Court ruling that KRS 304.1-120(7) is unconstitutional in that it effectively prohibits the existence of Plaintiff’s chosen health care coverage provider whose operation is both legal under federal law and has been found constitutional by the United States Supreme Court. Legislative action in the 2013 General Assembly (Senate Bill 3) in conjunction with a July 23, 2013 order from this court sought to clarify availability of religious health sharing options but did not address the statute’s constitutional infirmities. Such is the purpose of this action.

 

Respectfully submitted,


David Adams
121 Nave Place
Nicholasville, KY 40356
859-537-5372
kyprogress@yahoo.com

Plaintiff
 
 


   
This certifies the forgoing was served this ____ day of __________, 2013 via U.S. Mail upon:


Serve: Governor Steven L. Beshear
Office of the Governor
700 Capitol Avenue, Suite 100
Frankfort, KY 40601

Serve: Commissioner Sharon P. Clark

Department of Insurance

215 W. Main

Frankfort, KY 40601

Attorney General Jack Conway
Office of the Attorney General
700 Capitol Avenue Ste. 118
Frankfort KY 40601



       _________________________________
      
       David Adams

Beshear telegraphs Medicaid budget games

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear showed in a Finance and Administration document obtained yesterday how he plans to hide Medicaid costs under ObamaCare and state employees will be underwhelmed by his lack of creativity.

Beshear plans to hide about ten percent, and possibly more, of Medicaid costs in the first year of ObamaCare by pushing it off to the first budget year after he leaves office.

Commonwealth's Request for Proposal 758 1300000399 for Medicaid managed care contracts including an illegally expanded Medicaid program under ObamaCare states in Section 30.060.30.10.45 "(f)or members added pursuant to Medicaid expansion under the ACA, the methods used to determine the risk assessment and risk adjustment amount will be designed to be budget neutral to the Commonwealth."

That means provider payments will be cut and services denied in order to balance the books, if you believe the books will actually be balanced. They won't be.

Section 30.060.30.10.10 state "(t)he Department reserves the right, if needed, to delay the monthly payment due on or before June 8, 2014 to on or before July 8, 2014."

The Commonwealth's fiscal year ends June 30. Get the picture?

Kentucky's procurement officials were informed to not share this information, though one eventually did.