Friday, February 07, 2014

Fall of the House of Beshear

Left-wing talking point manufacturer ProPublica picked out four states who have made particular messes of their ObamaCare exchanges and wrote an article about them. The only fact that matters in an otherwise non-groundbreaking article is that Kentucky is not included in their story.

The many ongoing technical failures in Kentucky's "health exchange," though steadfastly ignored by Kentucky media, easily would qualify ours a state worthy of mention in a short list of failures. The main reason it is not is that Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear -- to his credit, from a marketing perspective -- declared victory early, often and very loudly regardless of the chaotic events surrounding ObamaCare implementation in Kentucky.

But that's neither the main point nor the end of the story.

The story actually ended on the day it began. That was July 17, 2012 when Beshear created Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange by executive order pursuant to KRS 12.028. This statute clearly requires the Governor to gain subsequent legislative approval for such a government re-organization as this. This he has utterly failed to do and the matter is currently before the Kentucky Supreme Court. Worse, when his first executive order expired last year without legislative approval, he illegally reissued it.

The 2014 Kentucky General Assembly has taken none of the necessary steps to ratify Beshear's illegal executive action, nor are they at all likely to. Even the state's biggest ObamaCare cheerleaders in the legislature have had two years to file a bill for ratification, but not one of them has acted. What the heck are they waiting for?

Matthew Chapter 7 in the Bible warns of what happens to a house built on a foundation of sand. It describes rain, floods and wind knocking down the house and says "great was the fall of it." The Kentucky General Assembly ends on April 15 and when it does without giving authority or funding for Beshear's little funhouse of big government dreams, the stories of epic failure will write themselves with or without the media sycophants who have kept Beshear's parade going far too long.