Analyze this ObamaCare scam, please

The biggest reason ObamaCare has gotten this far is a lack of careful analysis. State-run health insurance exchanges represent a perfect example.

Let's take Kentucky's Health Benefit Exchange. What we are getting is a web site people can use for comparing and purchasing health insurance under ObamaCare. Be careful not to confuse KHBE with www.ehealthinsurance.com, a private site serving the same purpose and not costing us anything. No, KHBE will be "better." Trust them.

This should beg several questions. Chief among them is the cost of running KHBE. Under ObamaCare , KHBE is a new permanent bureaucracy we will have to pay for starting January 1, 2015. According to KHBE's own estimate, that cost will be $39 million a year.

No analysis of ObamaCare shows it actually lowering costs. At best it transfers some uncompensated care expenses back and forth between consumers, and KHBE will be no different. Insurance consumers forced to do business with KHBE will pay extra to cover the $39 million.

And the amount is only going to be that low to the extent that the estimate is valid or for as long as costs don't increase further. Any guesses how that will work out for us?

The largest annual component of this cost estimate is $20.5 million. That's the current annual contract KHBE has with Deloitte for IT consulting. The second largest component is $11 million in spending for new state employees. Then comes $3.3 million in contracts with other state employees. After that, we have $2.9 million in hardware and software maintenance and licensing and $1.3 million for "miscellaneous" costs.

Governor Beshear signed off on all this nonsense with an executive order setting up KHBE for ObamaCare. He also told us he managed a $46 million budget surplus last year, though we now know better. More than half the other states have ruled out setting up ObamaCare exchanges despite pressure from the Obama Administration and the Republican Establishment.

Resisting temptation from both sides of the political status quo is as simple as digging into the numbers. Any questions?

Mitch McConnell pulls a Nancy Pelosi

As more details emerge on last night's fiscal cliff tax increase vote in the U.S. Senate, the secrecy of this bad deal and its similarities to Nancy Pelosi's happy claim that they had to pass ObamaCare so we could see what's in it continue to grow.

McConnell's deal with Vice President Joe Biden deserves a slow, painful death in the House. If they want to wait two months before spending cuts get back on the table, then let's drag this out for two months and make full repeal of ObamaCare part of the discussion.

ObamaCare's tax increases are the worst thing taking effect today and we should be talking about that.

Did someone hide little Carl Rollins' Twinkie?

House Education Committee Chairman Carl Rollins has filed a bill that just might get him appointed to Michelle Obama's food nazi staff in Washington D.C.

Under House Bill 44, schools would be "encouraged" to hide "prepackaged, unhealthy snacks where students will have to ask for them" and put "plain milk in front of chocolate milk" while "giving healthy food choices catchy, descriptive names."

I'm not kidding.

Rather than calling his bill "The Smarter Lunchroom Act," as Rollins suggests, how about "The Lunchlady Repetitive Motion Junk Food Turn and Grab Workout Act of 2013?"  

Mitch McConnell doesn't want another Rand Paul

Kentucky's establishment moderate Republicans are cooking up a plan to change RPK by-laws again. This time, the idea is to eliminate conservative primary challengers to their favored, status quo candidates.

The new policy would allow the Republican state executive committee, which McConnell controls, to endorse Republican primary candidates.

Can't imagine many people who seriously want to cut government spending and debt or protect civil liberties making that list, can you?

Please contact any Republican party officials you know and ask them to oppose this latest power grab.

Tim Shaughnessy, pension millionaire

Retiring state Senator Tim Shaughnessy is next in a growing line of Kentucky state legislators who voted themselves a huge pension boost and are moving to take advantage of it -- and you.

By virtue of his vote for HB 299 in 2005, Shaughnessy joins former Senate President David Williams and current Agriculture Commissioner James Comer in transferring years of legislative pension credits  to be multiplied with new massive salaries elsewhere in state government to illegitimately become state government pension millionaires.

Shaughnessy has taken a job in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System at $160,000 a year. His pension will now be based on his twenty three years as a legislator, plus whatever time he accumulates at KCTCS and multiplied by his three years of highest salary, unless he does the right thing now.

Please forward this message widely and contact these men to demand they take retirement from the legislature right away to make themselves ineligible to take advantage of Kentuckians any further.

Kentucky chooses unconstitutional route

Governor Steve Beshear's Department of Insurance has formally declined to attack one Christian health sharing group for practices used as justification to run another such group out of the state.

Fresh off a judge's ruling that Christian Care Medi-Share has until the end of the year to close all its accounts and stop serving customers in Kentucky, the DOI announced that it will not prosecute Samaritan Ministries for not submitting to state insurance regulation.

Arbitrary application of state laws violates Kentucky's Constitution.

The DOI is also considering whether to prosecute Christian HealthCare Ministries for the same crime of not falling in line behind the Department's capricious regulation. Should they do so, that would leave Kentucky Christians with only one viable alternative for health coverage when ObamaCare takes full effect.

Limiting consumer choice is not a valid justification for giving the government control of citizens' risk management decisions.

If misunderstanding Liberty were fatal, most people would be dead

I just got off the air with radio talk host Matt Walsh of WLAP in Lexington.

Having explained to Matt's listeners that the battle for health freedom depends on more people realizing that their rights are being abused and that it should be no comfort to them if they aren't yet being persecuted under bad laws, I was disheartened to hear one of his subsequent callers.

The caller explained that he is a member of Samaritan Ministries health sharing organization, which Christian Medi-Share is now referring their members to, and that he knew Samaritan wouldn't have any trouble with the law in Kentucky because of the way Samaritan has organized its sharing process.

He has been misinformed. Sadly, valuable time was wasted in organizing people to fight back against Frankfort's war on Christians because Medi-Share members were similarly lulled into a false sense of security under Kentucky law.

Kentucky law is very clear in stating that the only three health sharing groups grandfathered in under ObamaCare are illegal in the Commonwealth. The fact that Samaritan and Christian HealthCare Ministries are not yet being attacked by regulators under the law can not legitimately provide a moment's comfort to the members of those two groups.

Further, people who don't belong to these groups who think they don't have anything to worry about because they have good employer-provided coverage are making exactly the same mistake. Many of them will be dropped as ObamaCare takes effect and then they will gain a greater perspective on health freedom in particular and Liberty in general.

Unfortunately, by then it may be too late. Please beat the rush and understand how Liberty for All means that we protect everyone's rights while we still can. If you get it already, please share.

David Williams in bipartisan pension scam

Kentuckians need to band together and demand David Williams retire from the Senate so that he becomes ineligible for the infamous million dollar pension reciprocity he rammed through the legislature in 2005. If we don't do this we deserve to get twisted every time David Williams and Steve Beshear grab a screwdriver.

Kentucky Halloween Massacre update

Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate will hear a request from Christian Medi-Share for extra time beyond his Monday order to shut down all operations in Kentucky by today. The hearing is scheduled for 2:00 pm ET in Frankfort.

At least one Medi-Share member is scheduled for surgery tomorrow.

Kentucky Halloween Massacre

A Circuit Court judge in Kentucky announced this morning he will rule by October 31 on whether or not to revoke the business license of a Christian group serving as an alternative to state regulated health insurance.

The Kentucky Department of Insurance has been (so far) successfully waging a war against Christian health consumers seeking to work around expensive regulations which result in severely limited health coverage choices for Kentuckians. Christian Care Medi-Share has been in and out of Kentucky courts for an entire decade, fighting for its ability to offer significantly better health coverage to Bluegrass State consumers.

Christian "health sharing" is actually not banned under ObamaCare, but Kentucky's hostility toward healthcare consumers predates the federal takeover of medical care by decades.

Pitchforks and Torches in Frankfort

Kentucky's ObamaCare Advisory Board is meeting publicly in Frankfort on Thursday October 25 at 1:30 pm ET.

You don't really need to bring pitchforks or torches, but the silliness will be so thick that witnesses could be very valuable. So please make plans to come to 12 Mill Creek Park in Frankfort. Specialized knowledge in healthcare isn't at all necessary to see how foolish a big government scheme this is.

And that's the point. We need more people with more first-hand knowledge of the ObamaCare trainwreck our own people in Frankfort are signing us up for, so please come if you can and invite others even if you can't make it.

Courageous candidates' legislative pension fix

Since 2005, several Kentucky legislators have taken advantage of a pension trick pushed into law by Senate President David Williams and former House Speaker Jody Richards to enrich themselves with public money after long General Assembly careers and short stints in the executive or legislative branches of state government.

J.R. Gray. Steve Nunn. Dan Kelly. Charlie Borders. James Comer. Ernesto Scorsone. Fred Nesler. Jon Draud. Greg Stumbo. Clearly, this is a bipartisan problem.

Several legislators have filed bills the last few years to close this "loophole," but none have seriously gotten close to being enacted. It's time for that to change.

Ironically, the first person who could have taken advantage of this pension trick did not do so.

Former state Rep. Joe Barrows took retirement from the legislature rather than boost his pension with the "reciprocity" scheme before going to work in the Executive Branch.

This week, Senate President David Williams will come one big step closer to a judicial appointment that would make all his state pension dreams come true at a cost to taxpayers of nearly one million dollars. Five state House candidates joined together last week and signed onto a statement encouraging Williams to put an end to the pension grab madness.

Chris Hightower, Matt Lockett, Jason Crockett, Bryan Lutz and Lynn Bechler agreed to the following:

"Should Senate President David Williams accept appointment to the circuit judgeship in his home district, we encourage him to set a strong example for future legislators by retiring from the legislature so he will not be eligible to receive pension reciprocity he has fought to repeal in the Senate."

 

"The honor of appointment or election to higher office deserves to be without controversy as much as possible and we believe President Williams' leadership on this issue will be followed by others until the reciprocity law can be repealed by the legislature."

 

Williams would do very well to go along with this. Same goes for Senator Tom Jensen, who is also leaving the legislature to become a judge.

Obama wants us staring at our shoes, too

Just got a response from Obama's Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights, to my complaint about the Kentucky Department of Insurance unconstitutionally attacking Christians for attempting to avoid ObamaCare's health insurance mandates.

The OCR rejected my complaint, but helpfully added that another agency may be able to assist and that they had taken the liberty of forwarding my complaint against the Kentucky Department of Insurance onto another agency. So, to whom did the Obama Administration send my civil rights complaint against the Kentucky Department of Insurance for further investigation?

The Kentucky Department of Insurance, of course.

What part of "prohibited" don't they understand?

Kentucky law prohibits insurance coverage of abortions except as an optional rider on a policy for which an additional premium is charged. Otherwise, the law prohibits coverage of an abortion unless the life of the mother is in jeopardy.

Kentucky's ObamaCare health insurance exchange basic plan, announced yesterday, Anthem PPO plus KCHIP's pediatric vision and dental benefits covers abortions when the life or health of the mother are in jeopardy.

That may not seem like a big difference, but it is undeniably an illegal expansion of abortion coverage in the state by a Department of Insurance that went crazy in August at the mere suggestion they wanted to cover more abortions in Kentucky. Plus, we don't know how they plan to define what constitutes a threat to a mother's health. Could be just about anything, right?

Even if you favor abortion coverage or even abortions, none of us should support state bureaucrats ignoring the law on a whim. Please forward this post as widely as you can.

Kentucky judge shuts Christian MediShare

Franklin County Kentucky Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate just now ordered Christian Care MediShare to stop operating in the state.

In related news, Kentucky's Department of Insurance has announced that Anthem's PPO health plan plus KCHIP's pediatric dental and vision benefits will constitute the basic plan for the ObamaCare health insurance exchange, which will cause premiums to skyrocket.

Now is not the time to be limiting coverage options or larding up plans with more and more mandates, but that's exactly what we are getting.

Next up: Kentucky picks health exchange mandates

Rep. Stan Lee has pre-filed a bill to clarify that Obama's health insurance exchange can't make an end-run around state law and require coverage of abortions in Kentucky.

He should now file another bill to prohibit exchange coverage of all other kinds of surgeries.

Insurance coverage mandates increase costs. Verify that with your plastic surgeon or contact lens provider.

Another secret ObamaCare meeting

Governor Steve Beshear's ObamaCare Health Benefit Exchange Advisory Board will meet on Thursday September 27 at 1:30 pm in Frankfort at the Department of Insurance, 215 W. Main Street.

Please call Karen Cantrell at 502-564-7940 and ask if the meeting is open to the public.

Republicans can win state House on ObamaCare

Democratic state Rep. Mary Jane King went on the radio to campaign and painted herself into a corner on her support of ObamaCare. There are lessons here for her opponent, tea party Republican Chris Hightower and other Republicans around the state.

Rep. King says in the interview she supports key features of ObamaCare, but starts going wobbly when she is pressed about how those features negatively impact people buying insurance.

Pressed further, she tries to run away from the whole thing and put responsibility on Congress. That's a nice try, but if the state merely stops setting up the optional health insurance exchange and refuses to accept the optional Medicaid expansion -- neither of which is affordable in the state budget -- ObamaCare goes away.

There is still time for a bill in 2013 to stop both of these activities from proceeding into 2014. Republican candidates should propose that and get their opponents on the record right away.

Here is Rep. King's interview:

Left doubles down on "Didn't Build That"

Republicans have clearly struck a nerve attempting to capitalize on President Barack Obama's claim that "You didn't build that."

Writing for Kentucky's fifth-highest circulation newspaper today, reporter Joe Sonka attacked Senator Rand Paul for bringing it up.

"The main theme of his speech was the main theme of the convention so far, which is a blatant and shameless lie — “You didn’t build that!” — taking President Obama completely out of context to mislead that he said business owners didn’t build their own business, instead of what he really said, that business owners didn’t build the roads, bridges and infrastructure that they rely upon."(emphasis added)

Liberal bloggers apparently believe that government creates infrastructure with the sweat of its own brow, rather than with resources taken from private sector wealth generators.

Could this be why they are still so confused about government "stimulus?"

Retiring GOP lawmaker blasts David Williams?

Kentucky Rep. Bill Farmer (R-Lexington) will retire from the legislature at the end of this year, so he doesn't have to hold his tongue anymore about the disaster Senate President David Williams has been for Republicans. 

In a comment on an online Louisville Courier Journal column about legislative pension greed today, Rep. Farmer recalled the vitriol directed at lawmakers who, like him, voted against the David Williams Pension Scandal.

Rigor mortis is starting to set in on David Williams' shenanigans in Frankfort. Expect a lot more of this soon.