Thursday, February 12, 2015

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.