Bevin, Conway should publicly debate healthcare on Wednesday in Frankfort

Gubernatorial combatants Matt Bevin and Jack Conway already raised eyebrows by holding their first joint appearance of the fall campaign at a private coal meeting in Virginia. They have a great opportunity this week for a public, second encounter at a Frankfort hearing on the all-important healthcare issue.

There are sure to be fireworks at Wednesday's Medicaid Oversight and Advisory Committee meeting at 10 am in room 131 in the Capitol Annex in the committee's last monthly meeting before the end of the fiscal year. The Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare has been a fiscal disaster fraught with service failures putting providers and patients at greater risk unecessarily. Conway says he supports it. Bevin says he opposes it.

Audrey Tayse Haynes, Cabinet Secretary of Health and Family Services, is sure to play her usual game of pretending not to know the answers to any difficult questions, such as how much we have spent on Medicaid in the current fiscal year ending this month. Senator Ralph Alvarado is loaded for bear and is likely to turn much-deserved heat on Haynes, but citizens will be poorly served by Haynes' continued dissembling.

Kentuckians of all differing opinions should challenge Conway and Bevin to both bring their opposing viewpoints and help shine a light on this key issue.