Anthem joins the mid-year rate increase parade

With ObamaCare beneficiaries Kentucky Health Cooperative and Time Insurance Company gaining quiet premium increases in recent weeks, the largest health insurer in the state wants its piece of the pie too.

Anthem Health Plans has requested a "base rate change" effective July 1, but the Department of Insurance's public web site does not specify yet the amount of increase sought. The "Consumer Protection" people at DOI said they would divulge the amount of the increase on Monday.

This is a tax increase like the other ObamaCare tax increases. What's worse, consumers locked into ObamaCare plans no longer have the freedom to drop out their health plans when faced with one of these mid-year increases without becoming subject to the ever-increasing mandated coverage tax.  Frankfort Obamacrats will claim the state Insurance Code gives DOI the right to levy such a tax on Kentuckians whenever they wish, but that only makes it more infuriating.

Will Kentucky ObamaCare melt further after temperatures thaw?

A minor health insurance player in Kentucky just received quiet approval from state insurance bureaucrats to further gouge consumers just as Gov. Beshear triggered a state law designed to prohibit price gouging for other consumer goods. The timing of this price increase suggests other health insurers may soon follow suit.

Time Insurance Company health coverage premiums will increase nine percent in Kentucky on May 1. This comes after Time's fifteen percent increase took effect January 1. And this comes immediately on the heels of Kentucky's largest ObamaCare health insurer receiving multiple rate increases in quick succession.

Late last year, just as the Kentucky Health Cooperative was making headlines for sucking down tens of millions more in federal bailout funds and sacking consumer advocates, it requested a 9.9% rate increase in June and got a fifteen percent increase in September. They came back in October and increased that to twenty percent with a quick assist from the Kentucky Department of Insurance.

We'll be on the lookout for more rate increases in the weeks ahead.

Matt Bevin fell for ObamaCare's next big lie

We all know by now that President Barack Obama was lying when he said if you like your health insurance you can keep it, but Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Matt Bevin apparently didn't get the memo about another lie.

There is no provision in the so-called "Affordable Care Act" for states dumb enough to accept the Medicaid expansion to later rescind their acceptance despite presidential claims to the contrary designed to suck in the unsuspecting. Bevin should have known this. His claim that he would cancel out the Medicaid expansion if he is elected governor holds no water.

Former Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott made headlines last month when he became the first Republican gubernatorial candidate to announce that he would take action to cancel Kynect, the state's ObamaCare health benefit "exchange." Fellow candidates James Comer and Hal Heiner subsequently flip-flopped from their prior positions that they would leave the exchange intact.

Beshear misstates Medicaid expansion statistics

Governor Steve Beshear and his Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange disagree about the total number of Kentuckians placed on Medicaid under ObamaCare -- by over half a million people.

Beshear announced today that 375,000 people were added to Medicaid from October 1, 2013 to the end of 2014. KHBE answered an open records request last November 26 stating "806,783 individuals are currently enrolled in Medicaid through Kynect."

The really odd thing about Beshear's number today is that there were already 310,000 Kentuckians on ObamaCare Medicaid at the end of open enrollment last April. At that time, enrollment for private plans was closed down and the army of ObamaCare sales people turned their focus completely toward signing new people up on Medicaid, aided by a flood of advertising dollars for the various Medicaid plans.

And Beshear now wants you to believe that in seven months they only signed up 65,000 for "free" Medicaid among people who would face fines for not signing up. It's much easier to believe hundreds of thousands were signed up, as KHBE said.

Beshear also said expanded Medicaid under ObamaCare will be responsible for adding 40,000 jobs a year in Kentucky by 2021 and add $30 billion to the state's economy. Skepticism abounds.

Will T. Scott: make the call on pensions

Will T. Scott urged his supporters statewide to call their legislators and demand a "NO" vote on Speaker Greg Stumbo's pension bailout bill, House Bill 4.

"Fixing Kentucky's public pension mess without borrowing us into a deeper hole or raising taxes is one of my highest priorities," Scott said. "We should not have to beg our representatives to lead on this. Pick up your phone and call 800-372-7181 and order them to vote against House Bill 4."

Scott is the only gubernatorial candidate with a plan to solve Kentucky's worst-in-the-nation pension underfunding problem with expanded gambling revenues constitutionally devoted to paying down pension debt.

Will T. Scott urges March caucus for state GOP

Kentucky Republicans should support a plan by Senator Rand Paul to choose a presidential candidate next year in March, before the May primary election, gubernatorial candidate Will T. Scott said.

"Rand is right when he says Kentucky's primary usually comes too late to have our voices heard in a meaningful way," Scott said. We can try a caucus in March this one time and see how it works. I'm sure most Republicans will agree with me." 

Senator Paul will ask county leaders of the Kentucky Republican Party to make this change at the next Central Committee meeting in Bowling Green on March 7.