Is Beshear defrauding feds or Kentuckians?

If you want to see Gwenda Bond's head explode -- and believe me, you do -- ask her for a copy of Kentucky's NCE application for our state ObamaCare Health Benefits Exchange.

As spokewoman for Kentucky's Cabinet for Health and Family Services, she is the person Beshear administration officials referred me to when I asked for a copy of the document formally requesting additional time to spend federal dollars on the Commonwealth's ObamaCare program.

The reason Gwenda is so upset is the "Affordable Care Act" requires all federal implementation funds given to states to set up their own exchanges to be spent by December 31, 2014, but gives flexibility for an extension if additional time is needed for the initial set-up of the "exchange." Beshear has been bragging across Kentucky and around the nation that Kentucky's exchange is ahead of schedule and operating better than other exchanges. So which is it: is Kentucky moving slowly and in need of remediation or does Beshear simply lack the legal authority and state spending ability he needs to proceed without state funds in a mere five months and finds himself in need of a federal bailout he can't have without breaking federal law?

A CMS FAQ document on NCE grants specifies: "the funds may not be used to cover maintenance and operating costs." Beshear has no money for such costs and no legal authority to cover them. So, you see the problem. After claiming falsely that he didn't need state funds for ObamaCare, Beshear now needs them but doesn't have them and doesn't qualify for an extension of federal funds and time is running out on his charade.

Lawsuits 13-SC-652 and 13-SC-667 currently await Kentucky Supreme Court action seeking clarification of Beshear's violations of state law in trying to force us into ObamaCare without legislative approval.

Beshear's $8.5 million ObamaCare/Kynect problem

Governor Steve Beshear filled last year's budget hole last Wednesday with $91 million in funds shifted around from someplace else. One of those other places was Kentucky's ObamaCare exchange, which coughed up $8.5 million for the cause.

The tangled web of problems with this transaction is worth looking into.

Beshear admits up front that the ObamaCare bucks are actually Kentucky Access funds. As Kentucky Access funds, they could be considered "lapsed funds," which a divided Supreme Court just last month declared fair game for General Fund spending. Beshear moved Kentucky Access funds to the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange with an executive order filed in 2013 that expired unratified last Tuesday, the day before Beshear ordered the money to be thrown into the General Fund.

So technically, Beshear didn't raid Kentucky ObamaCare. He raided Kentucky Access, which had unspent tax funds after last fiscal year because Kentucky Access doesn't exist anymore. Otherwise, Beshear would have been taking state funds out of Kentucky ObamaCare, which funds through budget negotiations this spring he insisted did not exist and would not be needed in the new biennium.

But we are in the new biennium and, as Beshear now admits, the ObamaCare exchange does need state funds even though the legislature refused to give him any and explicitly forbade him from spending. Yes, Beshear wrote another executive order in 2014 to replace the old unratified one, but state law very clearly forbids him from doing this.

So if you are keeping score at home, Beshear just raided a fund of $8.5 million that he said in court last year that he wouldn't need even though he knew he did and now he has to replace it even though the legislature has refused to grant him the necessary authority to get it, to replace it or to spend it if he does.

Wouldn't it have been much simpler, Governor, to just be honest and follow the law in the first place? Obamacrats...

Beshear sends along critical new evidence

I just got a letter from Gov. Steve Beshear's attorney in my two ObamaCare lawsuits which he claimed was in answer to my week-old question about illegal "exchange" funding in the state budget.

In the letter, attorney Patrick Hughes advised me of state Open Records law, again, reminded me that because the cases are on appeal the discovery process is over, quoted back my question to state Deputy Budget Director John Hicks, and then answered half the question.

Hughes answered the easy part, admitting that state funds have been written into the budget. Thanks, counselor, I needed that evidence. Again, the legislature voted nearly unanimously in March to prohibit any state spending in the new biennium on anything "directly or indirectly related to the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange." There is no legal authority for the expenditure, as this letter also tacitly admits.

Beshear did not veto the defunding language because his veto would have easily been defeated by the legislature. He claimed then, falsely, that no state funds were necessary and called the spending prohibition "symbolic" and meaningless.

So much for that claim.

Thanks to everyone who shook the governor up the last couple of days to force him to cough up this invaluable admission.

Held hostage in Kentucky

It's been a week since I asked Kentucky Deputy Budget Director John Hicks to his face where he got the $37.4 million dollars to spend on the state ObamaCare exchange and under what legal authority he was spending it since the legislature almost unanimously voted in March to prohibit any such spending.

He has failed so far failed to respond. Maybe we should be worried. Perhaps Mr. Hicks has fallen ill and can't answer his email. Maybe he is being held hostage and can't answer because his head is wrapped in duck tape.

More likely, this sorry episode merely demonstrates the depravity of our state government and it is we who are being held hostage by a rogue governor and his army of overpaid minions. I would call the media, but they live too far up Gov. Beshear's rectal cavity to notice the stench of his actions. I would call whichever Republicans wield influence in Frankfort, but they are mostly too afraid of Beshear's popularity to mount any form of sustained protest.

So I come to you for help. Please forward this message as widely as you can and tell your friends to do the same. Please also contribute whatever you can afford to the fight, by clicking here to donate, so we can keep going.

The Kentucky Supreme Court is on vacation this month. We desperately need them to clarify the law for Gov. Beshear and his fellow Obamacrats when they come back to work. Remember the squeaky wheel gets the grease and let's keep getting louder and louder.

Halbig case about more than ObamaCare

Halbig v. Burwell turns on whether or not the IRS can change the words in a law on a whim. The suit arose because the "Affordable Care Act" says federal subsidies flow through ObamaCare "exchanges" when they are set up by individual states.

Some three dozen states did not fall for the offer of federal seed money to start an exchange and the reason for this is simple. States dumb enough to set up their own exchanges would then be responsible for the costs of running their exchange perpetually while refusenik states were liberated from paying the same costs. Also, because of how the law was written, states opting out of state-run exchanges would not see their health insurance markets further distorted by federal subsidies. It was a risk-free way for a state to vote against ObamaCare -- which is both their right in such a circumstance as well as their responsibility in the face of federal overreach.

Both sides in the case agree that if the Plaintiffs win, ObamaCare will be ripped apart. Most states would be exempt from much of the carrot created to sucker people into the dependency of ObamaCare, while their citizens would be forced to pay full price for the stick of ObamaCare's wild federal coverage mandates. Federal representatives of such states would have no leg to stand on to insist their people continue to suffer under ObamaCare because the new subsidy-receiving constituency would no longer exist.

Obamacrats campaigning against the lawsuit are placed in the untenable position of arguing that the language of the law should be ignored because following it would lead to a result that, according to them, would not comport with the purpose of the law as stated in its title, which is of course the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act."

The hard truth is ObamaCare does nothing to lower the cost of healthcare, it merely shifts those costs around which actually increases them. Attempting to ignore the language of a law because following it frustrates your administration's imaginary purpose is a truly unique legal argument by a truly unique presidential administration.

Beshear budget fraud update

I stopped in the office of Kentucky Deputy Budget Director John Hicks five days ago to ask him about the curious appearance of state spending in the current budget for the ObamaCare exchange after Gov. Beshear spent months lying about the need for state funds and the legislature succeeded in -- nearly unanimously --defunding the exchange.

Mr. Hicks asked me at that time to send him an email with my question. I sent an email on July 9 at 2:27 pm which read as follows:

John,

Thanks for talking with me earlier today. If you could, please provide me with the source of budgeted restricted funds for the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange in the current biennium and any statutory authority related to such funds.

Thanks,

David Adams

859-537-5372

I have yet to receive an answer. Surely there is someone out there who won't be stumped by such a straightforward request.

Herald Leader selling Beshear math

In a story about Kentucky state overspending -- they call it a budget "shortfall," of course -- the Lexington Herald Leader unquestioningly prints another piece of Gov. Steve Beshear's budget propaganda as fact.

"The governor has cut $1.6 billion in state budgets since taking office in 2007," reports Herald Leader reporter Jack Brammer without attributing the questionable statement to anyone.

According to state budget documents available to anyone who bothers to look, Revised Fiscal Year 2008 state spending was $24.3 billion. Revised Fiscal Year 2014 spending $29.7 billion. And you probably aren't supposed to remember Beshear got and spent $3.4 billion in federal "stimulus" funds right in the middle of that.

We're looking at spending going up an average of almost a billion dollars a year under Beshear and almost another billion a year in one-time money blown through, but Beshear and his cronies in the media keep repeating his "budget cutting" fiction.

Beshear budget fraud on Page 209

When the 2014 Kentucky General Assembly enacted budget language forbidding spending on anything directly or indirectly related to ObamaCare, Gov. Beshear declined to veto the provision because, he said, sufficient federal funding would be available to run the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange in 2015-16.

That was never true.

Now the actual state budget (on page 209) shows $37.4 million state dollars being transferred to the Exchange as state restricted funds and spent in clear violation of the explicit legislative instructions in the current state budget. An active state budget is the supreme law of the land in Kentucky next to the Constitution.

I have made a request of Deputy Budget Director John Hicks for an explanation of this illegal action by the Beshear Administration.

Abortion zealots attacking Nicholasville Hobby Lobby store TODAY at 4pm

In an attempt to gin up pro-abortion activists for mid-term elections, Democrats are trying to make an example out of Hobby Lobby with protests around the country at the Christian-owned stores.

Local media sources report the same thing will happen today at 4pm at the Brannon Crossing Hobby Lobby store in Nicholasville.

Left-wing activists are upset because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Obama couldn't force Hobby Lobby to pay for abortifacients for the company's employees.

See you there?

Steve Beshear admits it

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear did not veto budget language earlier this spring defunding ObamaCare in the Bluegrass State because, he said, federal funds would be available to fund it throughout the two year budget cycle.

That was a lie and he just admitted it in writing.

In an executive order filed with Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes late yesterday, Beshear attempted for the third time to administratively create the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange with the following admission:

"WHEREAS, operation of kynect in Kentucky will be funded entirely with federal funds until January 1, 2015, at which time its operations will be wholly funded from revenues generated by and through the Exchange." (emphasis added)

Generating revenue "by and through the Exchange" would require the creation of a tax and an appropriation, neither of which can the governor do on his own. Beshear's two previous attempts to create the exchange by temporary reorganization executive order, which is what this is, failed in the 2013 and 2014 General Assemblies when the legislature declined to ratify them as required by the relevant statute KRS 12.028. Subsection 5 of the same law forbids the governor from putting its provisions into effect until the next session of the General Assembly. He has now violated this law three times, despite stating on federal grant applications requesting over $200 million in federal funds that the exchange had been legally created.

Two current lawsuits in state court seek to clarify the constitutional issues limiting Beshear's authority in this matter. They are 13-SC-652 and 13-SC-667.

Beshear quietly grants 200,000 Kentuckians two year ObamaCare reprieve starting Tuesday

Nearly 200,000 Kentuckians facing health insurance cancellation under ObamaCare starting Tuesday July 1 will instead have two more years before they have to worry about narrow provider networks and excessive costs associated with the Affordable Care Act's insurer loopholes and coverage mandates, the second such extension announced by President Obama and Governor Steve Beshear since last November.

Insurers are supposed to notify affected customers if they are among the lucky few allowed to avoid the ObamaCare pool a while longer. Anthem said about 130,000 of their customers make the cut, as do Humana's 32,000 small group enrollees. Also benefiting are more than 6000 Time Insurance Co. customers, 9000 with Bluegrass Family Health, 11,000 with UnitedHealthcare.

Kentuckians shouldn't have to beg their politicians for permission to keep their health insurance and such permission should not be granted piecemeal. The arbitrary and capricious -- and illegal -- implementation of ObamaCare in Kentucky is currently being challenged by two lawsuits in state court, 13-SC-652 and 13-SC-667.

Beshear hires $400/hr. D.C. lawyers for Medicaid debacle

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has hired a Washington D.C. law firm at $400 per hour to provide "legal advice and consulting services regarding the development of various funding mechanisms and management initiatives for the Medicaid Program," according to a document filed with the Secretary of State's office.

The massive fees will be split 50/50 between the federal government and the Commonwealth for Covington & Burling of 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.

Earlier this spring, the Kentucky General Assembly defunded the Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare amid wildly excessive costs greatly exceeding Beshear's rosy projections. Two state lawsuits also seek to stop Beshear's foolishness before too many more millions of dollars are wasted. The cases are 13-SC-652 and 13-SC-667.

The contract specifies "Covington  & Burling shall also provide legal representation to the Cabinet in Medicaid related litigation."

Will Steve Beshear try 2nd ObamaCare "mulligan?"

When Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear failed to get legislative approval for his 2012 temporary reorganization executive order attempting to create a state-run ObamaCare exchange in his state, he got sued. His response to that failure and that lawsuit was to illegally file another executive order.

That second executive order not only did not get approved by the legislature, it sparked very clear legislative language enacted into law in the state budget forbidding Beshear to proceed with his ObamaCare fiasco.

But Beshear seems to think he deserves another mulligan.

The illegal second executive order expires July 15. Federal authorities have been formally notified of Beshear's multi-million dollar fraud against them. The only way this doesn't get a lot worse is for Beshear to come clean now and admit that his ObamaCare gambit has failed.

Unfortunately for all of us, again, Beshear seems convinced that he deserves another shot at his pipe dream. Two Kentucky Supreme Court cases (13-SC-652 adn 13-SC-667) seek to clarify for Gov. Beshear the error of his ways.

Senate Democrat wants to jail Audrey Tayse Haynes

Sen. Reggie Thomas (D-Lexington) pre-filed a bill today for the 2015 Kentucky General Assembly that would make lying to a legislative committee a crime and in some cases, a felony.

The only person I saw make repeated false statements in a committee meeting last session was Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Audrey Tayse Haynes while promoting ObamaCare.

The bill would require committee leaders to swear in witnesses as if they were testifying in court and the regular penalties for perjury would apply.

I like this a lot, though I suspect jailing Obamacrats isn't exactly what Sen. Thomas has in mind. The bill is scheduled to appear as Senate Bill 11.

Taxpayer funded Kentucky ObamaCare insurer gouging will go largely unscrutinized

The Kentucky Health Cooperative, an insurer created solely by ObamaCare with federal tax dollars, has requested a 9.9% premium rate increase for 2015.

The Kentucky Department of Insurance, purportedly a consumer watchdog, has evolved into little more than the local muscle of an insurer protection racket and will surely rubber stamp the request.

A statement on a federal health insurance web site appears to explain a lot about the odd price increase.

The Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight explains: "HHS works in partnership with states to ensure that all proposed rate increases of 10 percent or more (emphasis added) in the individual and small group market are thoroughly reviewed."

Beshear damned either way on ObamaCare

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear's anticipated third attempt to force his state into maintaining an ObamaCare exchange has not yet materialized and he doesn't want you to know why.

Beshear filed his second temporary reorganization executive order last June when his first (2012) executive order designed to create the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange (KHBE) was about to expire because the 2013 Kentucky General Assembly declined to ratify it. Franklin Circuit Court Judge Philip Shepherd failed to recognize the illegality the second executive order found in KRS 12.028(5), which failure is currently under review by the Kentucky Supreme Court (13-SC-000652 and 13-SC-000667).

Either way that goes, Beshear and friends bear watching between now and July 15, when the KHBE loses any semblance of a claim to exist under Kentucky law due to the expiration of the 2013 executive order, producing a default into the federal exchange as should have happened a year ago. This essentially would free Kentuckians from the obligation to pay millions of dollars in ObamaCare taxes.

Worse, for Beshear, filing another executive order serves as an admission to the FBI that he lied on federal grant applications for which he fraudulently received more than $200 million in federal funds to create the exchange. What has to give him pause now is the realization that not filing another executive order does exactly the same thing.

Any questions?

HHS calls $3168 ObamaCare subsidy a "success"

A new Health and Human Services report claims data compiled from state ObamaCare exchanges shows the federal takeover of healthcare in America is "working," but uses ridiculous methodology to arrive at that conclusion.

The report finds an average monthly per person health insurance premium in states on the federal exchange of $346 and claims success because nearly seventy percent of plans are subsidized with federal dollars leaving an average monthly net premium of $82 for that segment of the ObamaCare population.

The report quotes HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell saying "the Marketplace is working. Consumers have more choices and they're paying less for their premiums."

Jacking premiums up to an average of $346 a month and touting the necessity of a $3168 annual federal subsidy (346 - 82 = 264; 264 x 12 = 3168) as evidence the "Marketplace is working" could only fly in the la-la land in which Obamacrats celebrate each others' brilliance.

Can't be long until Kentucky's brain-dead media starts cheering this on as well.

Federal investigation of Frankfort ObamaCare begins

I met with an investigator at the Lexington office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation this afternoon to initiate a case against Gov. Steve Beshear's administration for fraudulently obtaining over $200 million in federal ObamaCare grants based on the false statement that Beshear had legal authority to apply for the grants without legislative approval.

In multiple grant applications, Beshear claimed that he filed a temporary reorganization executive order that was sufficient to give him authority to create the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange. That was a false statement. Making such a false statement to the federal government is a felony.

Federal officials in Oregon and Maryland are already investigating questionable statements made on Health and Human Services gate reviews just like the ones falsified by Beshear for possible criminal charges.

Courier Journal shoots for 2014 "lie of the year"

Louisville Courier Journal writer James R. Carroll thinks you are stupid.

In a story this morning about Gov. Steve Beshear speaking in Washington D.C. about ObamaCare in Kentucky, Carroll wrote the following:

"The governor called the state health care exchange known as kynect "highly successful," enrolling 421,000 Kentuckians — with 75 percent of them receiving coverage for the first time in their lives."

The governor is entitled to any opinion he wishes to express, but not ridiculously false numbers. And for Carroll to repeat them without attribution, credibility or apparently any thought at all takes the Courier's shockingly poor reporting on the subject to a new level.  The 421,000 enrollment figure is now two months old. There are now well over 500,000 Kentuckians signed up, nearly all of them in unaffordable and unsustainable Medicaid.

And the part about 75 percent of the recipients having never had coverage "in their lives" is not something I've even heard Beshear say. This is so stupendously false a claim that I can't imagine it being surpassed in 2014 in Kentucky and perhaps only nationally by the IRS' "dog ate our emails" whopper.

The only question that remains about this Kentucky ObamaCare lie is if it was told by Beshear or by the Courier Journal's James R. Carroll.

UPDATE: Just spoke with the Courier's Mr. Carroll who said Beshear is the one selling the absurd 75% figure. Here's hoping he clarifies his article to separate himself from this very big lie. Meanwhile, the Beshear administration should be asked often to provide any kind of documentation they have. Hint: there is none.

Beshear taking third bite at ObamaCare

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.

Terrible Kentucky media stripped bare by Virginia

Late last night, Virginia's General Assembly passed a budget on barely bipartisan lines to prohibit their Democratic governor from forcing their state into the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. The Washington Post provided fairly comprehensive coverage of the issues and the debate. This comes two full months after Kentucky almost unanimously did the same thing but most Kentuckians know nothing about it because the media in Frankfort have been completely silent.

The similarity is that both states' Democratic governors are defiant in the face of the will of the people. Gov. McAuliffe has been and will be forced to fight his battle in public, though, while Beshear has been spared that fate by obsequious reporters and petrified legislators with the apparently singular exception of Sen. Damon Thayer.

The Kentucky Supreme Court can right this horrible wrong perpetrated on Kentuckians by our disgraceful media and political class by hearing two cases challenging Beshear's illegal ObamaCare actions, 13-SC-000652 and 13-SC-000667.

Big Brother looking at Steve Beshear

Federal investigators will be back in Frankfort Monday looking into misspent grant money and health insurance subsidies run by Gov. Steve Beshear through the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange.

Don't expect any news to come out of this audit soon, but the real crime is that Beshear's abuse of the law and federal tax dollars will have a complete paper trail Obama can use to extort some future obedience or silence from his Bluegrass Bootlicker.

Humana premiums double in Kentucky

Humana of Kentucky turned heads with their eighty percent premium increase in the first year of ObamaCare and have requested a 16.7 percent increase for plans to be sold beginning this November.

"This is insult on top of injury in Kentucky's ObamaCare fiasco, which Gov. Beshear still insists on ramming down our throats without following the law to get legislative approval or necessary spending authority," said David Adams, plaintiff in two state lawsuits challenging Beshear's implementation of expensive, optional features of the so-called Affordable Care Act. "Waiting on the Kentucky Supreme Court is getting old, so I'm challenging Beshear to a duel."

The two Kentucky Supreme cases are numbered 13-SC-000652 and 13-SC-000667.

As Kentucky's Medicaid population grows, Beshear shrinks

Kentucky's Medicaid expansion is already illegally spending state funds to pay costs of an exploding "free" healthcare population Gov. Steve Beshear suddenly doesnt seem so eager to brag about even as the number of sign-ups under ObamaCare approaches 500,000, nearly double the number predicted when this whole mess started.

This begs a couple of questions about what other ObamaCare projections in Kentucky might be off by a factor of two or more but Kentucky's brain-dead media won't ask them.

Another example of Kentucky media failing to serve

Later this month, Virginia's legislature will pass a budget prohibiting their Democratic governor from forcing the state into the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. We know all about this because the Washington Post has been providing a fairly balanced and accurate play-by-play coverage of a pretty dramatic partisan struggle.

In Kentucky, we have had no such luck in terms of on-the-ball media coverage. Our legislature almost unanimously defunded both the state run ObamaCare exchange and expanded Medicaid in its budget, but no one knows about it because the only person in Frankfort talking about it is Senator Damon Thayer.

Kentucky's budget language forbids expenditure of state funds for anything directly or indirectly related to the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange. Kentucky is the only state in the nation that tied its Medicaid expansion to its exchange. Also, the Medicaid expansion language in the "Affordable Care Act" requires states to spend their own money on administrative expenses related to the expansion. That has also been expressly prohibited.

Two Kentucky Supreme Court cases seek to clarify the law on these issues. They are 13-SC-000652 and 13-SC-000667.

Rand Paul and McConnell botching ObamaCare fight

You know it's getting bad when Rhode Island Public Radio is making fun of your two Republican U.S. Senators for going squishy on ObamaCare.

Former WFPL Louisville reporter Kristin Gourlay reported the following last night:

"What's curious, though, there is that some of the most vocal opponents of ObamaCare represent Kentucky in Congress and even they have kind of shied away from attacking the exchange because it has worked so well."

She's right that McConnell and Paul have "shied away" on this issue and most observers are forced to conclude, as Ms. Gourlay did, that their weakness implies approval. This needs to be fixed quickly.

Also in her report, Ms. Gourlay said: "Kentucky had already made a decision about how to pay for its exchange, they are charging insurers a fee, basically."

Actually, Gov. Beshear has claimed falsely that federal funds will pay for the exchange over the course of the next state budget and that is why he did not object to the legislature defunding it. So which is it, Governor, is the federal government paying for it or did you create a new tax somewhere without telling the legislature or anyone else except some reporter in Providence?

If Senators McConnell or Paul want to be of any assistance in fighting ObamaCare anymore, right here would be a great place to start.

Mr. Beshear goes to Washington, again?

Watching Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear attend the State of the Union Address as President Obama's special ObamaCare guest was a bitter pill for anyone aware of both state and federal law regarding implementation of "health" reform and Beshear's violations of it.

He may be looking at a return trip to the Capitol without quite so much fanfare. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is investigating seven states who have wasted some $1.3 billion in federal funds they were given to set up their state-run ObamaCare exchanges. Kentucky is not one of those states.

Perhaps they soon will be. Please call Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) at 202-225-3761 and ask him to investigate Kentucky, which claimed in their federal grant applications that legal authority to create "Kynect" existed when it does not.

Will Republican "Flip the House" even matter?

I'm struck when talking with Republican politicians in the state House and Senate that they are not only resigned to the fact that Gov. Steve Beshear has no respect for constitutional and statutory limits on his powers, but that too many of them don't see that as the place to start the fight.

Gov. Beshear is telegraphing his intentions to write a third executive order attempting to create the ObamaCare exchange this summer. He wrote the first one in 2012, did it again in 2013 after the first one expired without legislative ratification and now plans to do it again after a July 15 expiration date for the second executive order.

This all violates not only the Constitution but also KRS 12.028.

We've seen what this kind of lawlessness has done in Washington D.C. Steve Beshear is trying to bring that here. No one in the House minority seems willing to engage in this fight. Only Damon Thayer in the Senate shows up at all. If we allow governing by executive order with no check or balance, what good will a Republican majority in the House do us?

Am I missing something? Anyone?

Beshear's hack admits Kynect is busted

Buried deep in a Washington Post "Fact Checker" column today about Sen. Mitch McConnell's latest ObamaCare gaffe was an extraordinary admission by a top Beshear administration official about the foregone conclusion of failure of the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange.

The Post wrote about the exchange that Kentucky Health and Family Services Cabinet press secretary Gwenda Bond "said the state is considering an assessment on insurers to provide long-term funding after 2014."

This is not true because "the state" has already soundly rejected any such thing. The fact that Beshear is saying publicly through his people that no such funding exists is substantial, though.

Beshear already tried to create this new insurance tax with an executive order last year that was illegal when he wrote it in violation of KRS 12.028(5) and which expires anyway on July 15, 2014 per the same statute. House Bill 505 this year attempted to ratify the executive order and create the tax, but it died in the House Health and Welfare Committee.

Unless Gov. Beshear is going to call an ObamaCare tax special session of the legislature, which wouldn't work anyway, there is no chance he gets his ObamaCare tax pushed through before federal dollars run out at the end of 2014. Realistically, there is also no chance he gets it pushed through any other time either, but that's another story. The legislature's nearly unanimous defunding of anything directly or indirectly related to the exchange proves it.

Beshear really needs to face facts and start to implement an orderly dismantling of Kentucky ObamaCare.

Sam Youngman sells his soul for ObamaCare

It started two weeks ago when a Marist poll for NBC News showed ObamaCare's unpopularity in Kentucky and the fact that ObamaCare is well-known, but Kynect, the Kentucky ObamaCare exchange, is not. Left-wing news sites joined the Louisville Courier Journal in attempting to spin the results to inflate the role labels have in public perception of the "Affordable Care Act" debacle.

And now Lexington Herald Leader political reporter Sam Youngman goes all in with this theme and ups the ante significantly. While even the Huffington Post proclaimed only that "Kentuckians Hate Kynect A Lot Less Than ObamaCare," which is true if you ascribe ignorance of the term to mean the same as having less animosity, Youngman wins the prize for distorting the poll results the most.

In a story today about the U.S. Senate candidates' struggles to capitalize on the ACA in Kentucky, Youngman writes the following:

While McConnell has sought to make the health care law a central part of his strategy to tie Grimes to Obama, who remains deeply unpopular in Kentucky, his campaign must also contend with polling that shows far more Kentuckians favor Kynect than "Obamacare."
An NBC News/Marist poll conducted earlier this month showed that 57 percent of registered Kentucky voters have an unfavorable view of "Obamacare" but only 22 percent held an unfavorable view of Kynect. Another 29 percent had a favorable opinion of Kynect, 29 percent had never heard of Kynect, and 21 percent were "unsure" how to rate the state program.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/05/28/3263792/fight-over-health-care-law-reveals.html?sp=/99/322/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy

The poll found 33 percent support for ObamaCare in Kentucky and 29 percent support for Kynect in Kentucky. Youngman has been thoroughly briefed about Kynect's legal troubles, but clearly prefers distorting poll numbers for an agenda to reporting truth.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2014/05/28/3263792/fight-over-health-care-law-reveals.html?sp=/99/322/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy

Joe Sonka vs. McConnell on Kynect; both wrong

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell continues to draw attention for trying to split the baby on ObamaCare/Kynect and LEO writer Joe Sonka is driving the bus for the other side. Both sides need work.

McConnell said: "If ObamaCare is repealed, Kentucky should decide for itself whether to keep Kynect or set up a different marketplace."

Kentucky has already decided. Gov. Steve Beshear attempted to create the ObamaCare exchange in Kentucky with a 2012 executive order. The 2013 General Assembly did not ratify the executive order, causing it to expire per KRS 12.028. Rather than follow the law at that point, Beshear wrote another executive order creating the exchange in violation of KRS 12.028(5). A bill was actually filed in the 2014 General Assembly to ratify the second, out-of-order executive order (HB 505), but that bill failed to even get a hearing in a committee chaired by the bill's sponsor, Rep. Tom Burch.

Then the legislature voted almost unanimously in HB 235, the budget bill, to defund the exchange, declaring Beshear is "prohibited from expending any General Fund resources on any expenditure directly or indirectly associated with the Health Benefit Exchange."

Two lawsuits are well underway to clarify Gov. Beshear's illegal actions. Both cases (13-SC-000652 and 13-SC-000667) are currently in front of the Kentucky Supreme Court.

Sonka, for what it's worth, had a clever retort: "McConnell saying that Kynect can survive the repeal of ObamaCare is like saying that the Oklahoma City Thunder can trade Kevin Durant, but keep his jump shot."

But this cute analogy misses the point as well. But for the last desperate illegal moves of a rogue governor, Kynect already does not exist. The jump shot is already gone, as is the power forward. The only reason this issue hasn't been fully put to rest is that the Kentucky Supreme Court has been sitting on it for seven months.

Instead of embarrassing themselves with further misstatements on the issue of Kentucky ObamaCare, both the McConnell and Grimes camps should urge the Court to get off the dime so we can get started on the real work of cleaning up Beshear's mess. 

Our nonexistent "sustainability plan"

The Obama administration wants Rhode Island to demonstrate they have the ability to maintain their state-run ObamaCare exchange after federal funds run out at the end of 2014. That should be interesting because there is a bipartisan effort to shut down the exchange there just as their Obamacrats are begging for even more money.

Kentucky should be forced to do such a sustainability plan because not only was our exchange created without legislative approval which -- by state law -- it must have to exist, no funding mechanism has been created and the legislature just refused for any other state funds to be used to run it.

Seriously, ObamaCare fans everywhere should notify the White House about the mess Gov. Steve Beshear is making in Kentucky. The story I read about the request of Rhode Island came after media reports of that state's ObamaCare problems. Kentucky's media isn't covering this, so the President may not know.

Why Mitch McConnell should support me

Sen. Mitch McConnell made national news today suggesting he doesn't want to dismantle Kentucky's state run ObamaCare exchange. It really doesn't have to be this hard.

From the Associated Press:

Asked if a repeal of the health care law would mean Kynect should be disbanded, McConnell said: "I think that's unconnected to my comments about the overall question."

Ouch. This is especially terrible because McConnell's Democratic opponent just raked herself over the coals on the flip side of the same question. A much better answer would have been simply "Yes."

Government did not invent health insurance and has not "provided" health insurance to 413,000 Kentuckians. Government involvement has served only to make health insurance less affordable and less efficient. Plus, Gov. Beshear has illegally created the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, has failed to gain legislative ratification (twice) of his executive order establishing the exchange and the legislature just last month voted almost unanimously not to provide state funds for ongoing exchange activities when they become necessary after December 31, 2014.

Sen. McConnell's Senate office is on this blog site every day. He has to know all this stuff. Getting on board with my two Kentucky Supreme Court cases (13-SC-000652 and 13-SC-000667) is a total no-brainer and could go a long way in preventing future silly gaffes as the media attempts to make the fall campaign about 413,000 "beneficiaries."

Will Beshear's pride cost Kentucky an ObamaCare "freebie?"

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear has claimed, falsely, that all ObamaCare expenses for the next two years are covered by the federal government. Federal law states very clearly that no federal funds can be used for ObamaCare exchange operations after December 31, 2014.

A funny thing has happened: a Rhode Island official claims that state asked for and will receive federal funding in 2015 for their state-run exchange. If that's true ("Christine Ferguson, director of HealthSource RI, said federal officials have agreed to let the state use federal dollars through the end of calendar year 2015 — one year longer than planned.") and Rhode Island has gotten some kind of special dispensation in violation of federal law, Kentucky should pursue the same thing.

Four states that signed up to run their own exchanges have recently defaulted to the federal exchange already, of the original fourteen who took Obama's bait. Rhode Island is likely to do the same despite their special law-breaking situation because their state Obamacrats are still looking for more state money to spend and the likelihood that they will get it is going down by the day.

Beshear's situation is further complicated by the fact that once he starts admitting to having lied about funding, he may be forced to admit that he doesn't have legal authority for ObamaCare and no state funding source. Given his track record, expect Beshear to continue to just muddle along illegally and expensively, hoping against hope he can continue to ignore reality for a little while.

The Associated Press is wildly inaccurate

Democratic Senate candidate Alison Grimes refused yesterday to say whether she would have voted for ObamaCare.

Twice.

Associated Press reporter Adam Beam did well to ask this important question and Mrs. Grimes did as expected in showing she can't handle very obvious questions.

But Mr. Beam couldn't just leave the story there. He had to include some bizarrely inappropriate and inaccurate editorializing in his "news" story. He wrote:

"The law Republicans call "Obamacare" presents a delicate issue for Grimes, who won the Democratic Senate primary on Tuesday. Kynect, Kentucky's state-run health insurance exchange made possible by the law, is wildly popular. More than 400,000 people have either signed up for an expanded Medicaid program or purchased private insurance plans with the help of government subsidies. But Obamacare remains unpopular in the state, mostly because President Barack Obama himself is unpopular here."

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/05/21/5838150/ky-democrat-mum-on-question-of.html#storylink=cpy

Beam "wildly popular" characterization was probably inspired by a strange MSNBC article from March that was actually quite damning in its detailed description of Kentucky ObamaCare despite also calling the scheme "wildly successful." Labeling ObamaCare's unpopularity "mostly" a function of Obama's unpopularity is another well-worn left-wing media talking point ignoring the reality of the law's increased costs and other anti-consumer results.

Adam Beam knows better than to do this. Here's hoping he puts more of an effort going forward into journalism and less into providing repackaged propaganda. 

This post needs 1 million likes

My name is David Adams and I live in Nicholasville, Kentucky. I watched Governor Steve Beshear over the last two years claim authority he does not have to sign Kentucky up for the optional parts of ObamaCare and then proceed illegally to commit our state to a path we cannot afford.

I filed two lawsuits that are currently awaiting Kentucky Supreme Court action. They are 13-SC-000-652 and 13-SC-000667. I need both attention to this issue and money to fund the effort. Let's start with attention, always the easier of the two.

I need 1 million Facebook "likes" on this post to get it in front of enough people to spur action. The legislature decisively defunded everything "directly or indirectly related to the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange" last month. In Kentucky, that includes the Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare and cancels our obligation to finance Obama's "health" reform bureaucracy for him in the Bluegrass State.

Four concurrent federal lawsuits stand to cancel taxpayer obligations related to ObamaCare exchanges in states that refuse to set up their own exchanges. As the legislature is the people's voice, Kentucky has refused to set up an exchange. Our Constitution and statutes clearly prohibit the governor from ignoring our voices on this. Other states whose officials have tried to set up ObamaCare exchanges are starting to figure out they are simply caught in a trap and that now is the time to get out. If we stand up now and join our voices, Kentucky will join them. If we don't an unprecedented standard of lawlessness will be established here, from which there will be no winners.

Please help by simply passing this post along more than once.

Kentucky can't pay Deloitte for ObamaCare

Deloitte Consulting got kudos yesterday in the Washington Times for running state ObamaCare websites in four states -- Rhode Island, Kentucky, Washington and Connecticut.

Interestingly, the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal urged its state government to drop Deloitte and the whole idea of a state run exchange today and default into the federal exchange because the state simply can't afford to continue the charade of funding Obama's health bureaucracy for him. And the Providence Journal is hardly a right wing rag, having endorsed Obama twice.

The evidence is overwhelming that Rhode Island doesn't have the money to play with. It's even more so for Kentucky. Rhode Island's legislature is trying to defund its exchange, though it may be struggle to get that past its governor. In Kentucky, we have already done that.

Gov. Beshear has written a check he can't cash. It's past time for him to admit his mistake so we can start cleaning up the mess.

Sen. Walter Blevins went to Alabama

State Senator Walter Blevins (D-Morehead) went on Alabama Public Radio to talk up ObamaCare in Kentucky, but he appears to have left his state Constitution at home:

“I’m glad our governor has that right to do those things. We have a divided government right now, the Republicans control the Senate, the Democrats the House. The governor went ahead on his own and did an executive order, didn’t need the legislature, we weren’t in session at the time. There has been some talk about trying to defund it by the Republicans but they don’t have the votes in the House so it’s kind of at a standstill.”

The only thing Blevins got right is that the legislature was out of session when Beshear filed his executive order creating the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange. Governors in Kentucky have the ability to issue temporary reorganization executive orders when the legislature is not in session, but that doesn't mean Beshear "didn't need the legislature."

In fact, KRS 12.028 makes clear that the opposite is true. Failure of the legislature to ratify the terms of such an executive order means that its provisions "shall be terminated" ninety days after the session ends. The "talk" about defunding not only broke out its "standstill" with 89 yes votes in the House, it passed the Senate 37-1, with Blevins voting for it.

Sen. Blevins is not up for re-election this year, but he should be made to explain his distortion of this issue in 2016.

Frank Simon endorses Matt Bevin; cites incumbent's bad votes, dishonest campaigning

Every election, Dr. Frank Simon's Freedoms Heritage Forum sends out tens of thousands of voter guides statewide with substantial impact. Just got mine in the mail today with its endorsement of Matt Bevin for U.S. Senate at the top.

The best part is the footnote pointing out several bad McConnell votes funding ObamaCare, giving Obama a blank check on debt increases, voting federal funds for abortions and voting to allow the federal government to obtain gun records. The same footnote also points out in bright red lettering that "McConnell's accusations about Bevin's record are questionable."

Very nicely understated, Dr. Simon. Well done.

Evolution of a fake Kentucky ObamaCare data point

Two months ago, Gov. Steve Beshear starting telling an unquestioning media that seventy five percent of ObamaCare sign-ups in the state did not previously have health coverage. This statistic was not credible then as a hard number, nor was it credible last month when it morphed into an estimate. Taking another step back, Beshear now characterizes this iffy data point as a "survey" result:

The Christian Science Monitor reports today "Surveys of enrollees show that 75 percent had no health insurance prior to kynect. And more than half of those signed up are under age 35 -- far above the national average for this crucial age bracket."

This is ridiculous. At the beginning of ObamaCare, Kentucky was one of only two states that was going to ask every enrollee to certify previous insured status. They never did it. When pressed, Beshear made up the seventy five percent statistic -- apparently thinking it sounded good. The fact that he has backed off this claim so quickly with apparently no one but this blog calling it into question and no one in the media seeming to notice should be a constant source of embarrassment to anyone who still considers what they peddle to be "news."

And the part about young people signing up for ObamaCare in Kentucky is total garbage too. They are counting Medicaid enrollees and children, not young adult "invincibles" buying health insurance, which is the meaningful statistic to give an indication of the death spiral already underway in American health insurance.

Study: Kentucky ranks last in economic health

Kentucky has the worst state economy in the country, according to a new report by global capital management firm Conning.

The report cites Kentucky's dramatically underfunded public pensions, overspending and debt among others as key factors dragging the Commonwealth to the bottom of their list.

This is, of course, news to anyone who depends on the mainstream media for information. Kentucky's latest fiscal year deficit, for example, was more than $573 million despite claims from Gov. Steve Beshear repeated unquestioningly in the media as a $71 million surplus.

Obamacrat wannabe goes down swinging

Frankfort reporter Ronnie Ellis' audition for a press secretary job in the Beshear administration took an odd turn yesterday with another skewed report of another bogus administrative regulation vote on the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion.

Ellis wrote: "Courts have ruled Gov. Steve Beshear had the authority to expand Medicaid under legislation previously enacted by the General Assembly because it allowed the state to access more federal funds for the federal-state partnership that covers medical costs of the poor and disabled."

While one court has ruled this way, Ellis incorrectly makes the term plural, suggesting a falsehood. Further, when Franklin Circuit Judge Philip Shepherd ruled on this question last fall, his opinion included the following: "The General Assembly has the power to enact legislation to override these regulations, or to withdraw the authority to promulgate the administrative regulations. But this authority requires the enactment of a bill."

We have just such a bill. The General Assembly last month enacted HB 235, the budget bill, which stated in part: "Therefore, no provision within this Act shall be deemed, adjudged or constructed as being a recognition, finding or admission or admission of the General Assembly's approval of the operation of the ACA in Kentucky." It goes on to say: "The Governor is expressly prohibited from expending any General Fund resources on any expenditure directly or indirectly associated with the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange."

Any questions?

Media witlessly portrays ObamaCare poll

A new Marist poll shows ObamaCare is very unpopular in Kentucky. It also shows the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, branded as "Kynect" with taxpayer dollars, is widely unknown but even less popular.

So how does the Courier Journal describe the poll's findings? Like this:

"Kentuckians like health care law, labels depending"

That's the headline. If you click on it, you get a brief article calling Kentucky ObamaCare a "major success" without attribution and invoking Shakespeare to suggest that under a different name, the federal takeover of healthcare is well-liked.

Given the Kentucky media's wall-to-wall cheerleading for all things "ObamaCare," "Kynect," "BeshearCare" or whatever, popularity for federal health reform is nowhere evident. The poll had 57 percent unfavorable for ObamaCare and 33 percent favorable for ObamaCare. The other ten percent lacked the information to have an opinion. The poll had 29 percent with a positive view of "Kynect" and 22 percent with a negative view of "Kynect." A staggering 49 percent lacked the information to have an opinion.

Only the Courier Journal -- and, seriously, only in the ObamaCare era -- would say this means Kentuckians actually like the Affordable Care Act. The only way we lose to these people is if we are just too tired to deserve to live in freedom.

TV commercial script for Matt Bevin

{Open with full screen Bevin logo}

Voiceover: "I'm Matt Bevin and I approve this message."

{Matt on screen head and shoulders}

"When conservatives in Washington D.C. tried to defund ObamaCare last fall, {picture of McConnell on screen touching Obama and laughing} my opponent stood against them.

"McConnell said the conservative strategy wouldn't work and {graphic showing nay votes to Vote #206 Sept 27, 2013, highlighting Rand Paul's name and "nay" vote} then played along with Democrats to make sure it didn't. A few conservatives held strong. 

Something similar just happened in Frankfort, Kentucky. But here, Republican leaders stuck to their guns to defund ObamaCare and Democrats gave in. {Matt on screen head and shoulders} McConnell and the Democrats don't want to talk about conservative victories. When conservatives stick together, we win. I'm Matt Bevin and I appreciate your vote May 20. 

ObamaCare fans want to ignore calendar

The latest pro-ObamaCare talking point attempts to refute a recent U.S. House Republican report finding that some two-thirds of private health plan purchasers under the Affordable Care Act had managed to make even their first month of premium payment. Insurance company executives came to the rescue yesterday, claiming that it is more like eighty percent.

The executives were quick to point out that their numbers are still preliminary and that no one really knows even now a hard number on this.

Nevertheless, left-wing talking heads are trying today to make this into the latest anti-ObamaCare "lie." But one thing I have not seen pointed out in any of the conversation about this controversy is that while we are talking about people making their first premium payment, the current month is May.

While some people signed up in April and even March and may have mailed in premium payments not yet received, the vast majority of sign-ups came much earlier -- the started last October -- and we aren't talking about people who have made all their payments. Just the first one.

Obamacrats have moved administratively to significantly delay how quickly insurers can cancel policies for non-payment, even making it easy for people to order a policy, use it for coverage and never pay -- while the insurer must give them one month for free. It will be interesting to learn how many people take that money and run.

ObamaCare-quitting states get a bonus

Oregon and Massachusetts made news recently by deciding to quit trying to set up state-run exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, saving themselves substantial sums of money. A report on CNBC suggests others may be close behind, but it doesn't really say why. That reason is big news.

The Affordable Care Act encouraged states to set up their own exchanges by promising and then delivering substantial federal grants to fund state efforts through December 31, 2014, but made no provision for clawing back that cash from states who took it and then failed to perform.

In our first two examples of taking the money and running, Oregon received $304 million in federal grants and Massachusetts got $180 million. Both stood to be on the hook for tens of millions a year each in additional annual costs to keep their program running perpetually.

Or they could just quit and let the federal government take on the responsibility, the work and the cost. Nearly three dozen states refused initially to take the bait and avoided the entire charade by never attempting to set up their own exchanges. In two states, Kentucky and Rhode Island, Obama-supporting governors tried to create state-run exchanges at their first opportunity by issuing executive orders. Both could soon wind up following Oregon and Massachusetts for fiscal reasons, with efforts underway in each state. In Rhode Island, a bipartisan bill (HB 7817) has been filed in the legislature to defund the exchange, with sponsors citing the same tens of millions of dollars in annual costs as being beyond the state's means. In Kentucky, an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote last month defunded their exchange and in HB 235 pointed out Gov. Steve Beshear failed to gain required legislative approval for his executive order under state statute KRS 12.028. Beshear says he will continue to run the "Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange" in violation of state law and without necessary funding until he is forced to stop. Two lawsuits have been filed against him in the state (13-SC-000652 and 13-SC-000667) and currently await state Supreme Court action.

Full disclosure: I filed the two lawsuits against Kentucky's Governor for illegally attempting to force Kentucky into ObamaCare.

Kentucky's $253 million ObamaCare good news

One thing I noticed in reading the Affordable Care Act legislation is there is no provision for clawing back federal funds when a state's ObamaCare exchange exchange fails. This fact helped Oregon and Massachusetts decide to drop their exchanges and it will help Kentucky.

Kentucky received $253 million in federal funds to set up an ObamaCare exchange. Beshear failed to gain legislative approval for the exchange and the 2014 budget bill defunded it.

A bipartisan bill in Rhode Island would defund their state exchange and accept the federal government's offer to pick up the tab.

"This bill is not an effort to protest the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in Rhode Island, or to interfere in its operation. It is about a $40 million a year expense we cannot afford. Rhode Islanders can take advantage of the ACA without the state spending $40 million a year," said State Representative Patricia Morgan, prime sponsor of the bill."

Another state official I spoke to said concern about being forced to reimburse the federal government for grant funds received by the state was the only thing holding their effort back. They need not worry. Obama doesn't want the public relations nightmare of going after states that tried to help him with his unworkable law but failed.

Kentucky defunded its ObamaCare efforts last month. Gov. Beshear remains in denial about the fate of his "legacy" item, but there is now really no legitimate reason to keep hanging on.

Give it up, Governor.

Kentucky drops in behind Oregon, Massachusetts

In recent days, ObamaCare exchanges in Oregon and Massachusetts have bitten the dust. Kentucky should be next.

The media in Kentucky and those who have flown in from New York and Washington D.C. to report on ObamaCare here have done a terrible job reporting on the incompetence of those running the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, but that's beside the point now.

With the end of the Kentucky General Assembly session for 2014 and its refusal to give ObamaCare either the required legal authority to continue to exist or any of the funds necessary to operate in the coming biennium, the only thing delaying the official failure of Kentucky ObamaCare is continued disregard for state law by Gov. Beshear and continued misfeasance by the media.

Two lawsuits have been filed and await imminent action by the Kentucky Supreme Court. They are 13-SC-000652 and 13-SC-000667.

Derby shame: Beshear treats Obama like a lawn jockey

The Obama administration sent Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear more than a quarter billion dollars to set up the first phase of federal health reform in the Bluegrass State. Beshear, who came into office backed by casino gambling supporters and personally guaranteeing he would change state law to allow expanded gambling at horse tracks, has failed the White House even more spectacularly. The President knows this, obviously, but is too embarrassed by other failures in his plans to make a public example of Beshear. Yet.

There are a lot more elements of the Affordable Care Act teed up to go disastrously wrong for the President (see Halbig v. Sebelius, see any future verified details about how many ObamaCare policies are paid for, sold to sick people, sold to previously insured people, etc.)  and Beshear stands to get dumped on hard in the increasingly likely collapse. In applying for the more than $252 million in federal funds to set up the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, Beshear had to certify the legal authority by which he created the new agency. He personally guaranteed that he had done so on the federal grant application papers by referencing the temporary reorganization executive order he filed. He did not disclose that KRS 12.028 requires him to get legislative approval to make it legal. He never got that approval.

This matter is currently awaiting action from the Kentucky Supreme Court (see 13-SC-000667).

When Beshear was sued for his role in the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion, he first claimed that he was being sued too early because he had not yet initiated the regulatory process under KRS 13A. After that claimed was rejected by the Court and too late to complete the process legally, Beshear initiated administrative acceptance of the Medicaid expansion. See 13-SC-000652

Kentucky will host visitors from all over the world this weekend and they will be regaled with stories about how a Democratic governor served his Democratic president in a state represented federally by Republicans. Don't believe it. Beshear has violated the law and his oath of office and has betrayed everyone in sight.

Enjoy the horse races.

Kentucky Obamacrats melt under slightest media scrutiny

The Hill newspaper looked at seven states with competitive Senate races and tried to do a flyover analysis of each state's ObamaCare experience to estimate what role the federal law might have in November elections.

For all of Gov. Steve Beshear's talk of "indisputable success" here, the state has actually fared very poorly in terms of meeting its federal goal for insurance policy sales with an actual premium attached. When asked about this, some Kentucky Obamacrat fell apart:dfdlf

Kentucky came in last with 37 percent based on an enrollment goal of 220,000, raising questions about how stable its premiums will be next year. 

An administration official called the conclusion unfair, arguing the target represented a combination of projected exchange and Medicaid enrollments. 

A spokeswoman for the Kentucky exchange did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. 

So when asked about the state's dismal failure to even come close to a goal which would demonstrate the slightest chance of sustainability, the official Frankfort response was a vague and very obvious lie followed by hiding out waiting for the reporter to go away. Silly Kentucky Obamacrat, that garbage only works with Kentucky reporters.

Mitch McConnell pledges to support Matt Bevin

This is perfect.

In hotly contested statewide primaries, the Republican Party of Kentucky has made a tradition of inviting the combatants to pledge to attend a post-election unity rally.

In the 2003 gubernatorial campaign, the move helped solidify support behind Ernie Fletcher. In 2010, a skeptical tea party contingent with Rand Paul met a shocked and dismayed establishment cohorts Trey Grayson and Mitch McConnell to start that successful fall campaign.

As the polls continue to narrow in his favor, Matt Bevin has every reason to continue hedging on whether or not he will attend if the voters choose McConnell. In fact, on Monday or Tuesday Matt should put out a press release demanding full retractions and apologies from McConnell for each and every false personal attack McConnell has launched against Matt as a condition to further discussions.

Here's my thinking on this: McConnell has already announced his support for Matt as the Republican nominee if the election does not go his way. McConnell should have to explain his own horrific behavior during that campaign and seek to make amends now or explain why he thinks someone as untrustworthy as the cartoonishly corrupt image he has spent millions of dollars trying to create would deserve general election support simply in the name of party loyalty.

Very few people outside the very insular established moderate professional politician circles view party loyalty as sacrosanct as does McConnell. Mitch could be made to sweat on this point a lot in the coming days and Matt should make him do it.

Paducah Sun unmasks Beshear as blind Obamacrat

A Paducah Sun editorial today hearkens back to a discussion their board had with Gov. Steve Beshear before ObamaCare became law.

"Gov. Beshear, back at a time when he was candidate Beshear, told our editorial board he had "no idea where we would get the money" for Medicaid expansion if the Affordable Care Act was passed. He still doesn't."

That's a great point. The editorial unwittingly also perpetuates false information in claiming that Kentucky has no financial obligation for the Medicaid expansion until 2017. This is utterly false as we are even now spending state money administering expanded Medicaid without legislative approval. Fortunately for all of us, Kentucky's legislature defunded the optional parts of ObamaCare -- which includes the ObamaCare exchange and Medicaid expansion -- just last month.

Beshear's combination of ignorance and arrogance belongs in Washington D.C., not Kentucky. Thanks again to state Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer for breaking the silence over Kentucky's struggle to rein in our out of control state government executive.

Damon Thayer: we prevailed on KY ObamaCare

President Barack Obama lavished Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear with praise three months ago, calling him "a man possessed" for Beshear's zeal in pushing provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in his conservative, southern state. But that may be about to change.

Kentucky's legislature just defunded state implementation of federal health reform, derisively nicknamed "ObamaCare" by opponents in a struggle serving as the focal point for most if not all political observers ahead of midterm elections.

"Apparently Democrats can read polls that show how unpopular ObamaCare is with voters," said state Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, a Republican from the north-central part of the Bluegrass State.

The budget bill prohibiting use of state funds for the ACA passed both chambers of the legislature by wide margins, 89-11 in the Democratic House and 37-1 in the Republican Senate. Beshear's opportunity to line-item veto any part of the budget expired without him taking action on this. The two-year state budget now says the following: "The Governor is expressly prohibited from expending any General Fund resources on any expenditure directly or indirectly associated with the Health Benefit Exchange." The Affordable Care Act prohibits the use of federal funds for state run exchanges after January 1, 2015.

Democratic House Speaker Greg Stumbo is defiant, though he hasn't explained his position other than to say he wanted to avoid a lengthy debate. He told WFPL radio in Louisville simply, "We didn't feel like that this language would be egregious to the governor in moving forward."

Two lawsuits have been filed in state court to clarify the controversy and await Supreme Court hearings. Majority Floor Leader Thayer pointed out that legislative approval of Beshear's federal health reform advocacy was never granted as state law requires in KRS 12.028.

"Senate Republicans felt strongly that no state dollars should be appropriated to fund ObamaCare. Its implementation has never been approved by the General Assembly and has been unilaterally implemented via executive order by Governor Beshear," Thayer said. "We took a strong stand on this in the budget process and, fortunately, we prevailed on behalf of Kentucky taxpayers."

Governor Beshear has made no public comments about this new development.

They still think ObamaCare is free

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee reported today that only 2.45 million people in the federal ObamaCare exchanges out of 8 million claimed by Obama have paid even one month of insurance  premium.

“In a sad reversal away from its vows of transparency, the Obama administration, from inside the Oval Office on down, has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep basic details of the health law from the public. Tired of receiving incomplete pictures of enrollment in the health care law, we went right to the source and found that the administration’s recent declarations of success may be unfounded,” commented full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI). “We need a complete picture of how this law is working. We will continue to strive for transparency and hold the administration accountable for this law’s shortcomings and broken promises.”  

Lexington Herald Leader House candidate questionnaire

This afternoon, the Lexington Herald Leader issued state House candidate questions for a pre-primary voter guide to be printed on May 18, 2014. Each question must be answered in 45 or fewer words. Here they are, with my answers.

1.  Should the Kentucky Constitution be changed to allow casino gambling?

Kentucky shouldn't prohibit gambling, but must forbid  governments owning, managing or regulating, selling or giving licenses or taxing any business engaged in gambling differently than other businesses. Government officials must not project future revenues from gambling or spend revenues on non-debt items.

2.  Should the Kentucky Constitution be changed to automatically restore voting rights to most felons who have completed their sentences and terms of probation?

Yes, but only in conjunction with stronger voter identification requirements.
.

3.  Do you support or oppose Gov. Steve Beshear’s decision to expand Medicaid eligibility in Kentucky under the federal Affordable Care Act?

Oppose. The legislature did not approve the expansion of Medicaid under ObamaCare and has prohibited necessary state funds from being spent on the expansion.

4.  Should the state provide $80 million to help pay for a proposed redesign of Rupp Arena and an attached convention center?

No, it should be funded privately.

5.  Do you support or oppose a statewide ban on smoking in public places and places of employment?

No, property owners are capable of implementing smoking bans should they choose to do so. Protecting that choice is the proper role of government.

6.  Do you support or oppose a statewide prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation?

No, sexual orientation is a private matter. Individuals and businesses should not be subjected to further government interference regarding sexual orientation.

7.  Do you support or oppose a proposal that would require a doctor to present the results of an ultrasound to a pregnant woman prior to an abortion?

Beshear administration policies now provide funding for elective abortions in violation of state law, which means taxpayers could be required to fund these ultrasounds. I support clarifying legislation first and then requiring a doctor to present the results of an ultrasound before performing an abortion.

Oregon ObamaCare collapse presages Kentucky's

The Oregon Business Report is considering what will happen in their state after the federal government takes over their ObamaCare exchange. Very interesting, as they point out, that the whole thing may fall apart because of a federal lawsuit in which a ruling is expected any day now.

Kentucky's General Assembly defunded Kentucky's exchange earlier this month. While Gov. Beshear is still in denial about what this means for Kentucky's exchange, what is happening in Oregon bears close watching as this will soon be our fate too.

Is Mitch McConnell taxed too much?

A silly left-wing blog post from Friday points out evidence that Sen. Mitch McConnell's re-election campaign is paying for one of his staffers' health insurance premiums for Kentucky ObamaCare's public option KYHC.

You can read the post here.

A couple of things about the $170.43 monthly premium: one, that's a lot of money for what is almost certainly a young person and it's significantly more than similar coverage would have cost in 2013. And two, no such premium exists on the approved rate charts of the Kentucky Health Cooperative.

That means this ObamaCare plan for a McConnell campaign employee is either subsidized by federal taxpayers or the premium includes a tax Gov. Beshear didn't get authority to levy, or both.

What we need to know to figure this out is the age, home zip code, smoking status and chosen plan of the covered employee.

Sen. McConnell?

What's their phone number, Mitch?

Mitch McConnell came out of hiding this past week, but probably wishes he hadn't. The national media is all atwitter because Sen. McConnell said creating jobs isn't his job, but that's not the embarrassing part of his statement.

Government destroys jobs. The closest thing to creating jobs government can do is to get out of the way. That should have been very easy to say. But alas, it was not to be.

Asked what he would do to bring jobs to Lee County, McConnell said "That's not my job. It is the primary responsibility of the state Commerce Cabinet."

The Democratic response and that of the media has been focused on the "that's not my job" part of the quote. McConnell even responded to that, saying "It's up to all of us -- at the federal, state and local levels."

No, again. Waiting around for government at any level to create jobs is not something a person who understands economics would ever say.

But the really funny part -- what makes this an embarrassing gaffe -- is that Kentucky hasn't had a Commerce Cabinet for many years. Telling jobless Kentuckians to get off his back and call a nonexistent government agency in Frankfort is something Mitch's opponents should waste no time hitting him on.