Gov. Steve Beshear is widely expected to issue an executive order this week attempting to create an ObamaCare "exchange" in Kentucky. If that fact confuses you because of the many glowing reports of ObamaCare exchange success here, you really need to pay attention to this post.
Beshear filed his first temporary reorganization exchange order to create the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange in the summer of 2012. When the legislature refused to ratify the actions requested by Beshear, the executive order's contents became null and void ninety days after the 2013 General Assembly.
I filed a lawsuit against Beshear in anticipation of this failure in 2013. The day his first ObamaCare executive order was set to expire we were in court on this matter. Beshear re-issued his expiring executive order with a second executive order containing minor changes. This second attempt at forcing Kentucky into ObamaCare violated both the letter and the spirit of the law in KRS 12.028(5).
This matter is currently under review by the Kentucky Supreme Court in cases 13-SC-000652 and 13-SC-000667. One House Democrat filed a bill to ratify the second, out-of-order executive order in the 2014 General Assembly, but it failed to even get a committee hearing. Then the legislature voted almost unanimously to defund either of the optional parts of ObamaCare, the exchange and the Medicaid Expansion, in the state budget.
Beshear deserves to be questioned thoroughly about his illegal actions in the court of public opinion and in front of the Kentucky Supreme Court. Separation of powers is written in to our Constitution and is a key part of form of government. If the legislature need not be consulted on matters of policy such as taxing, spending and form and function of state government under some bizarre new Beshear Doctrine, why do we even bother sending legislators to Frankfort at all?
Our Constitution hangs by a thread.
