Check back often for news and commentary about Kentucky by David Adams.
Contact via email: kyprogress(at)yahoo.com or Lexington area telephone 537-5372.
At first glance, Kentucky ObamaCare insurer CareSource's approved rate increase looks odd. Better known as a Medicaid managed care coverage provider but also selling on the exchange, CareSource requested a large 20.55% rate increase request for individual ObamaCare customers but their rate is going up a staggering 29.3%.
Bevin spokesman Doug Hogan explained that an administration actuarial review showed CareSource's rate request "would be insufficient" to pay claims and "would ultimately lead to a harmful scenario for consumers."
Former Governor Steve Beshear could have saved customers, medical providers and taxpayers money and a lot of trouble if he had taken such care at any point before Kentucky Health Cooperative's managers took the money from their bloated salaries and bonuses and ran, leaving the rest of us holding the bag when their shell game failed.
"I guess there aren't any decent Obamacrat actuaries out there or maybe Gov. Beshear was more interested in seeing his friends at the cooperative load up on market share they couldn't maintain so they all got paid bonuses before the music stopped," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Gov. Bevin deserves credit for stopping CareSource from playing the same game.
ObamaCare cheerleaders in the media keep talking about Gov. Matt Bevin's attempt to renegotiate Kentucky's abysmal Medicaid expansion deal into a somewhat less abysmal deal, but they continue to leave out the most important point. Gov. Bevin's claim that he might unilaterally withdraw from Medicaid expansion is not supported by federal or state law or relevant case law, but federal officials don't want to make that clear because they are still trying to suck other states in by letting them believe there is an escape hatch.
There isn't.
Medicaid is a federal/state partnership for government-run healthcare in which the federal government pays most of the bills and retains total control of how the program is run. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that ObamaCare was simply a tax instead of an unconstitutional usurpation of individual and state rights by the federal government according to the plain language of the Tenth Amendment, it slightly trimmed back the usurpation by deeming the Medicaid expansion to be each state's choice rather than a requirement as previously stated in the "Affordable Care Act."
Some states blindly jumped in to the Medicaid expansion without asking any questions. Gov. Steve Beshear abused state law to add Kentucky to that number. Others negotiated slightly less horrible deals and accepted expansion, claiming falsely to have an ability to withdraw from the expansion later if it proved too expensive.
Obama and Hillary Clinton want to keep pushing holdout states to take the Medicaid expansion by keeping alive the falsehood that states have an ability to escape it later on if they choose. Kentucky would be the first to test this if Gov. Bevin's reform proposal is rejected and he then follows through on his threat to then reverse Kentucky's entrance into expansion. The feds' interest in suckering the holdout states may well inspire them to accept at least most of Bevin's requested reforms.
If, instead, they decide to fight, Bevin could drop excess Medicaid recipients and wait for the feds to sue. Presumably, a President Trump would not fight us and President Clinton would. (Good question to ask both of them.) President Clinton would win the lawsuit, but if Trump is POTUS and there is no lawsuit, Kentucky will win big by joining the states opting out of ObamaCare.
State Representative Kevin Bratcher has filed a bill which would tell the federal government where to stick unconstitutional mandates against state governments which exceed federal authority. The bill, filed as a joint resolution, could be an effective election issue for Republicans seeking a majority in the state House of Representatives.
"Bratcher's resolution states clearly the General Assembly's demand to the federal government to take its proper place as a limited agent of the states with specific, limited powers spelled out in the Constitution," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Hillary Clinton Democrats in Frankfort will hate this and they should be asked that on the record as often as possible between now and November."
Watching a craven Andy Beshear recklessly and repeatedly attack Gov. Matt Bevin with state tax dollars from the Attorney General's office for no better reasons than that his father shook down the Democrat donor class to buy him the office and because he can is getting pretty old. He needs to be impeached.
The one sticking point is Republicans must take a majority in this November's elections and then have the courage to follow through on the impeachment process.
The Kentucky Constitution Sections 66 to 68 governs how the process would work and it is not much different than the federal process, which you may remember being applied to Hillary Clinton's husband when he violated Paula Jones' civil rights.
One likely question in the process is the Constitution specifies that impeachment can result from "any misdemeanors in office." While Beshear may well be guilty of any number of crimes, what's interesting is that case law is overwhelming in affirming the Senate's ability to define terms and make its own rules for an impeachment process. In any event, neither prior nor subsequent court conviction for any crime is necessary for a constitutional officer to be impeached by the House and convicted and removed from office by the Senate. If the legislature wants him removed, they can do it.
Clearing this bad actor out of the Attorney General's office to be replaced with a more serious public servant is a very worthwhile pursuit worth campaigning for this fall.
Governor Matt Bevin's formal request to federal authorities to rein in Kentucky's failed Medicaid expansion contains a one line critique of the lawless Beshear Administration that will make Frankfort ObamaCare cheerleaders in the media mad when they read it.
"The reality is that Medicaid expansion does not pay for itself as envisioned by the prior administration," Bevin's Section 1115 Demonstration Waiver Application says, "and the Commonwealth of Kentucky cannot afford the cost of the Medicaid expansion program without this demonstration waiver."
Bevin Administration officials will present their requested changes Wednesday in Frankfort to the Interim Joint Committee on Health and Welfare at 10am in room 129 of the Capitol Annex.
"Beshear abused Kentucky law KRS 205.520(3) to justify jumping into ObamaCare Medicaid, but the statute's admonition to take advantage of all available federal health funds would better have been followed by avoiding the expansion altogether because it was such an obvious trap to sink the state deeper into debt," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "We're trapped now and Gov. Bevin's attempt here is our best option, ObamaCare cheerleaders be damned."
Fayette County Schools has received a $600,000 charitable grant to start a doomed program which deserves immediate awareness so its inevitable failure may not be a total waste.
With overheated fanfare, Fayette Superintendent Manny Caulk announced the start of another attempt to reduce racial education achievement gaps, telling the Lexington Herald Leader "today we stand before our community to say we will no longer allow a child's demography to determine his destiny."
Caulk emphasized starting a volunteer reading program for elementary students, tutoring and leadership training in middle schools and drop-out prevention and college/career readiness in high schools. No one should be surprised to see the $600,000 won't last long funding these not-so-revolutionary ideas.
Twenty four years ago, when I was starting my career in Atlanta, I was also volunteering with ninth grade students in two area high schools. One day, I asked each group separately how many of them expected to one day play professional sports. In the poor, black, inner city group, about half the boys raised their hands. In the middle class, suburban, all-white-except-one-kid group, every hand pointed at one black kid sitting quietly in his desk. His hand was not raised, but a few years later he played some minor league baseball before starting a ten year career in the NFL. He was not a star and you wouldn't likely recognize his name, but he made it. None of the others did.
I appreciate any emphasis on lifting up young people, particularly any from disadvantaged circumstances, but participants in this "Boys of Color" scheme will become pawns in a political game to roll a $600,000 one time grant into a permanent spending spree for services of which most should have already been provided.
Mr. Caulk calls the $600,000 grant a "game changer," but he needs to demonstrate quickly that he isn't just playing the same old game. That won't happen. Education is a real pathway to success, but waiting around for government to give it to you is a sucker's game. If you want to help a young black child to succeed, teach him this:
Humana has withdrawn its request to raise ObamaCare premiums 33.7% next year and Gov. Matt Bevin should use the move as a reason to start pushing for repeal of Kentucky's certificate of need laws.
The withdrawal is related to Humana's pending merger with Aetna, whose 5.6% individual market rate hike for 2017 has already been approved. That's bad news for Aetna's ObamaCare members because those former Humana members whose health costs necessitated a $33.7% increase now want to join up with them or one of the other companies with a relatively healthier insured base.
And that means higher costs for everyone.
Underlying dramatically increasing health insurance premiums, of course, are similarly rising healthcare costs and they have been made worse by Kentucky's burdensome regulatory impact on the industry, specifically its certificate of need statutes, or CON. CON keeps prices artificially high by limiting competition between healthcare providers. Gov. Bevin should take to his bully pulpit to encourage legislators to get government out of the way on this key issue. Resistant legislative incumbents deserve to be replaced.
Former Gov. Steve Beshear and Frankfort House Democrats made a huge mess of the rule of law attempting repeatedly the last few years to cram ObamaCare down our throats. Gov. Matt Bevin just quietly took a big step to clear up what could have been real chaos on that front as part of keeping his campaign promise to shut down Kentucky's state-run ObamaCare exchange.
Beshear's cartoonish repeated attempts to create "Kynect" with illegal and illegally reissued executive orders which were never ratified by the legislature and House Democrats' repeated attempts to ratify them anyway left Gov. Bevin entering July unable to shut down the illegal exchange immediately while negotiating with Obama officials to shut it down soon and no legal construct for keeping it going another day. So Bevin issued a carefully worded executive order creating "Kynect" long enough to shut it down with as little disruption as possible.
"Gov. Bevin deserves a ton of credit for walking behind Frankfort Democrats with a big pooper scooper to clean up this ObamaCare stuff," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "It's telling that after hyperventilating over every lie, bogus statistic and illegal Beshear ObamaCare move for years now, Kentucky's media is almost completely ignoring this responsible move by Bevin."
As Kentucky moves closer to legalizing marijuana for medical use, tax policy deserves special consideration in treatment of the plant and Kentucky can lead the way nationally by leaving all elements of production and distribution untaxed. At issue is the fact that federal designation of marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug allows the Internal Revenue Service to prohibit the use of any deductions of business expenses for products deemed illegal by federal law.
This policy has the effect of heavily increasing federal taxation on marijuana even in medical marijuana states, which costs are then passed along to patients.
"Kentuckians increasingly see past anti-marijuana scare tactics and Gov. Bevin's campaign pledge to support medical use of the plant provides solid proof of that," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Excessive federal taxation, at least while it lasts, should be met with a completely tax-free status of marijuana in the Commonwealth to help both our providers and consumers."
Former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear continues fumbling around the state in support of the ObamaCare debacle, but soon to be released statistics will show even constituents drawing federal subsidies to purchase jacked-up health policies in the last year dropped them here about as quickly as in any other state.
"Premiums are skyrocketing, doctors are quitting and people are suffering while politicians and their media-based pets who crammed this garbage down our throats illegally pretend everything will be fine if we throw a few more billion dollars at the problem," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Gov. Bevin should stop collecting the illegally transferred Kentucky Access tax and shut down Kynect right away."
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin has threatened to reverse expanded Medicaid here if federal officials reject his proposed reforms, but federal law does not allow him to follow through on his threat. The interesting wrinkle is the feds don't want to call his bluff now because they are still trying to trap more Republican governors like those in Arizona, Florida and Ohio in the Medicaid expansion roach motel.
That is, "you can check in, but you can't check out."
Senator Rand Paul should file a bill to explicitly give states the right to reverse acceptance of Medicaid expansion and start campaigning for this right away. Such a bill would pass the House and Senate and force Obama and Hillary Clinton to either confirm the trap ObamaCare puts states in or to reverse it.
Either way, freedom is advanced.
"The more people learn about ObamaCare, the more they understand the disaster it is," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Obama and Hillary need to decide if they want to go down fighting for power most Americans won't want them to keep."
Today is a big fundraising deadline for the presidential race, so the generic email request for money I got is not a surprise. But I would like to state publicly why I won't respond positively to this one.
"With your help today," the email reads, "we can turn our great country around and Make American Great Again. We can secure our borders, create jobs and keep our families safe."
Making America Great Again is an effective campaign slogan for lots of people, as is leading with policy proposals to attack illegal immigration, spur economic activity and pursue a strong national defense, especially since Hillary Clinton's campaign appears focused on raising taxes, matching small dollar campaign contributions with tax dollars, abortion and "strengthening regulation of 'puppy mills.'"
Nevertheless, the campaign I want to support would seek to restore greatness by getting government out of commerce and out of education and out of the wealth redistribution business. Donald Trump will get plenty of votes and lots of campaign contributions being slightly better than Hillary Clinton. But I'm not investing a dime in slightly better than Hillary Clinton.
A political sea change appears underway in Frankfort which could be very bad news for Kentucky Democrat operatives accustomed to ruling the roost.
It seems the largest voting block in Franklin County, Democrat state employees, appreciates Gov. Matt Bevin's keen interest in reversing the Gov. Steve Beshear policy of using public pension money to pay off political cronies. They also like the competence of Bevin political appointees, which represents another dramatic shift from the prior administration.
This could prove to be very bad news for the eager but inept Attorney General Andy "Baby" Beshear and we should know that pretty soon.
"The person to watch is Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "The last time he ruled on a governor's reorganization powers, he had no problem ignoring the law for ObamaCare to benefit a Democrat governor because his own Franklin County constituents were pro-ObamaCare. I think his constituents want Gov. Bevin treated fairly on KRS 12.028 in the University of Louisville Board of Trustees case which would involve Judge Shepherd following a law he abused the last time it came in front of him. If Gov. Bevin wins his U of L case in Franklin Circuit Court, things start to look very bad for Democrat operatives Baby Beshear and Greg Stumbo."
Nine months ago, Attorney General Jack Conway urged Gov. Steve Beshear to reorganize the University of Louisville Board of Trustees, suggesting an "executive reorganization under KRS 12.028." (OAG 15-015) Current Attorney General Andy "Baby" Beshear is now suing Gov. Matt Bevin for reorganizing the University of Louisville Board of Trustees through an executive reorganization under KRS 12.028.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
"One must wonder if Gov. Beshear would have twisted so many arms raising money for Baby Beshear if Baby sued him for doing the same thing for which he is now suing Gov. Bevin," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "These guys are such a clown show. Expecting Stumbo and friends to stage a sit-in any day now to demand Bevin stop cleaning up pension corruption."
The U.S. House Appropriations Committee will take up Homeland Security funding Wednesday, which would include continuing to pour money into a national identification and tracking program called REAL ID. Committee Chairman Hal Rogers should heed the call of Kentuckians to end the charade and drop further funding for REAL ID.
"Big government types claim forcing Americans to carry a federal ID card will somehow make us safer but they are never specific about how it accomplishes that because it doesn't," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Hal Rogers needs to get on the right side of this or explain in detail why he won't."
Federal drug warriors at the DEA are being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century as Congress warms to the idea of allowing Veterans Administration doctors to prescribe marijuana for their patients.
"Marijuana has been deemed a 'Schedule 1' drug by the feds, meaning that it has no medicinal value and only hurts people but we know that isn't true and already half of states have enacted medical marijuana laws to reflect reality," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "They could keep it illegal but call it 'Schedule 2,' allowing medical research for things like epilepsy and multiple sclerosis where we have seen benefits and the DEA has already conceded they may do that this summer."
Hillary Clinton has spelled out on her campaign website plans to reboot ObamaCare which may explain why the left-wing establishment media has been so quiet recently about the mess that health reform has become.
She wants to pretend that it's 2010 all over again by resetting and expanding federal bribes to states to entice them all to accept Medicaid expansion. She wants to spend billions of dollars to paper over two of the most visible problems with ObamaCare: high premiums and unaffordable deductibles. She wants to increase by $500 million a year marketing expenses to advertise ObamaCare at everyone, expand coverage subsidies to everyone regardless of immigration status and restart the public option "cooperatives" back to the beginning with more money.
"Now we know why the mainstream media has gone suddenly deaf and dumb to all things ObamaCare," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Hillary Clinton's big idea for healthcare is to start all over with much more money and more federal control as if no one has learned anything from the massive failures of the last six years of ObamaCare experience."
Gov. Matt Bevin got kudos in a Forbes Magazine article today for shutting down Kynect and seeking to limit ObamaCare's damage to the best of his ability while the Associated Press reports Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell doesn't want to withhold ObamaCare funds from Obamacrats across the country.
"ObamaCare is taxing and spending now solely because congressional Republicans allow it to persist and there is simply no good reason for it," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Gov. Bevin deserves credit for keeping his campaign promise and Sen. McConnell deserves to have language from the United States Constitution Article 1, section 9, clause 7 tatooed backwards across his forehead so he can see it in his bathroom mirror every day."
Jessamine County Attorney Brian Goettl filed a complaint against Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd today for calling a proper and legal executive order by Gov. Matt Bevin "like a neutron bomb."
"The language chosen by Judge Shepherd more closely resembles the remarks of a partisan, political operative yammering on incessantly on the 24/7 cable news cycle than a respected member of the bench," Goettl said in his complaint filed with the Kentucky Judicial Conduct Commission, which Goettl asked to issue a public reprimand of Judge Shepherd.
In his complaint, Goettl compared Shepherd's actions to those of former Attorney General Greg Stumbo in his attacks against former Governor Ernie Fletcher.
"Judge Shepherd's remarks seem to fit that political strategy, whether he intended them to or not, in that they fed the Democratic narrative and the news cycle of a news organization whose editors openly oppose Governor Bevin."
The Lexington Herald Leader published an Associated Press article about Shepherd's remarks under the headline: "Judge: Bevin's executive order is like a 'neutron bomb'."
"The Frankfort spin machine runs like this all the time," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "The difference this time is Jessamine's County Attorney Brian Goettl is protecting the public and the rule of law better than this rogue judge and these leftist reporters who didn't see any bombs going off when Gov. Beshear abused his executive order authority four times to saddle us all with his ObamaCare mess."
After news came out about Kentucky Obamacare health premiums shooting even higher in 2017 as federal reform continues to fail, former Gov. Steve Beshear sent a statement to the Associated Press claiming rates are going up because Gov. Matt Bevin is shutting down Kynect.
No one fell for it.
Associated Press reporter Adam Beam called up the largest remaining ObamaCare insurer -- Anthem -- and they told him the same thing they reported in their 22.9% rate increase filing, that rates are going up because Obamacrat claims of "bending the cost curve downward" continue to be false and that shutting Kynect has nothing to do with it.
"When even loyal Frankfort reporters stop short of carrying ObamaCare water, it's clear things have gone completely crazy," Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams said. "Steve Beshear belongs in jail for going around the Kentucky General Assembly to illegally force us into ObamaCare and he deserves a strait jacket for his increasingly bizarre displays."
