Monday, March 31, 2014

Fear not Beshear's ObamaCare defunding veto pen

The 2014 Kentucky General Assembly is sending a budget bill to Gov. Steve Beshear with language forbidding expenditure of state funds on ObamaCare, which Beshear is expected to veto.

It doesn't matter if he does or not, though, because no ratification of Beshear's executive order creating the ObamaCare "exchange" took place, nor was it possible to repair the legal problems with Beshear's unilateral acceptance of the Medicaid expansion.

Defunding ObamaCare in Kentucky by the General Assembly makes clear the legislature's repudiation of the federal takeover of health care. For symbolism, we have that even if the governor strikes it out. If the House fails to override, Republicans have that failure to use to replace Democrats as the majority in that body.

And even if Democrats do vote to override, we have their treachery on the first House vote to defund to beat them with. In any event, the next step is to go before the Kentucky Supreme Court with our twin legal challenges to ObamaCare to set right again constitutional limits of the governor's power.