Beshear telegraphs Medicaid budget games

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear showed in a Finance and Administration document obtained yesterday how he plans to hide Medicaid costs under ObamaCare and state employees will be underwhelmed by his lack of creativity.

Beshear plans to hide about ten percent, and possibly more, of Medicaid costs in the first year of ObamaCare by pushing it off to the first budget year after he leaves office.

Commonwealth's Request for Proposal 758 1300000399 for Medicaid managed care contracts including an illegally expanded Medicaid program under ObamaCare states in Section 30.060.30.10.45 "(f)or members added pursuant to Medicaid expansion under the ACA, the methods used to determine the risk assessment and risk adjustment amount will be designed to be budget neutral to the Commonwealth."

That means provider payments will be cut and services denied in order to balance the books, if you believe the books will actually be balanced. They won't be.

Section 30.060.30.10.10 state "(t)he Department reserves the right, if needed, to delay the monthly payment due on or before June 8, 2014 to on or before July 8, 2014."

The Commonwealth's fiscal year ends June 30. Get the picture?

Kentucky's procurement officials were informed to not share this information, though one eventually did.

NSA, eat your heart out (state ObamaCare email edition)

In case you have been wondering about the silence of media, insurance bureaucrats and left-wing politicians in the two weeks since the initial report of Humana of Kentucky's request for an eighty percent rate increase for health insurance under ObamaCare, wonder no more.

We now have proof.

An internal Kentucky Insurance Department email exchange between Department of Insurance employee Lynda Johnson and Humana actuary Nick Mueller dated June 19 and June 20 clearly refers to Humana's rate increase request. Here is Ms. Johnson's email:

This information has been publicly available for two weeks. The failure of Kentucky's media to cover this great failure of ObamaCare is a disgrace.

My favorite bureaucratic dodge

An attorney for Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear inadvertently makes the case for getting state government under control via the courts in a legal brief filed quietly on Friday.

"Only the Legislature has the authority to decide what constitutes a valid public purpose, and its determination cannot be disturbed as long as the basis is reasonable," said Beshear attorney John C. Enochs. (emphasis added)

This came in Franklin Circuit Court case 13-CI-785 Adams v. Commonwealth, in which the plaintiff seeks a determination that Kentucky's economic development subsidies and tax breaks violate Section 177. Click here and decide for yourself if arbitrarily giving deals or donations to individual companies comports with the plain language of our founding document.

Mr. Enochs also claims this issue was already decided when the Kentucky Supreme Court upheld in 1987 a statute enacted in 1986 to allow such donations to be given to Toyota Motor Manufacturing. This miscarriage of justice, as well-intentioned as it was, opened the flood gates to many more such well-intentioned but far less beneficial deals.

That 1987 court case was based on theory. The one in 2013 will be based on a quarter century of facts. Those facts will not be kind to those who want to argue that the basis for violating the Constitution in 1986 was reasonable.

Rooting out invalid "public purposes" in Kentucky law will not be a comfortable process for the bureaucrats and politicians who have built great fortunes subverting constitutional principles in the name of the public "good."

The evidence will convict them.

Let my people go!

There is a quick, cheap and easy way out of ObamaCare for most Kentuckians but the powers that be conspire to keep it from us in a way that shines a bright light on all that is wrong with government-controlled health insurance.

Consider first an Associated Press story out this weekend with the headline "Christian health program back in Kentucky." The story refers to a judge's ruling allowing Christian Medi-Share back into the state while mentioning that a legislative bill signed by Governor Beshear had a similar effect a month ago and that the company had actually resumed operations then.  

These actions return the number of such religious health sharing plans to three for Kentuckians as Christian HealthCare Ministries and Samaritan Ministries were never forced out as Christian Medi-Share was.

This AP story glosses over the significance of this event in by failing to mention that individuals and families who join these groups become exempt from the ObamaCare individual coverage mandate and federal penalties attached to not buying government-controlled health insurance. It also misleads readers about costs of these programs when it states "Medi-Share ... participants, who pay an average of $300 a month" without specifying that this amount covers an entire family. Kentucky's ObamaCare premiums will cost about that much per person.

Unfortunately, this media perpetuated ignorance is just part of the problem.

Kentucky needs to go back in and expand its exemption to eliminate the state government created black market effect in these plans and our congressional delegation should lead the way on expanding the federal exemption to allow creation of more competition in the marketplace for free market healthcare.

Politicians who talk about repealing ObamaCare but refuse to help with these needed reforms need to explain in detail how they are not part of the problem. Click here for a detailed explanation of what we need to do.

And to be completely clear, we need to expand this coverage option to include non-Christians as soon as possible, too. It's the Christian thing to do and if the people who pushed us into the trainwreck want a way out politically from the disaster they have created, this would do it.

Beshear preparing to shut ObamaCare Exchange

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has removed responsibility for Kentucky's unconstitutional Medicaid expansion from his illegal Health Benefit Exchange, we learned today.

That's probably a good idea because a hearing in Franklin Circuit Court on Thursday, August 1 could result in the state shutting down it's ObamaCare "exchange."

And that's very likely to happen because the Constitution sets clear boundaries between the authority of the legislature and the Executive Branch.

"If the Governor's challenged actions are upheld, the Legislative Branch would become irrelevant," said Michael Dean, attorney for the tea party plaintiffs.

Completing the application process for Medicaid, now the job of the Department for Medicaid Services, was made more difficult today by a ruling opening the door for finding that process unconstitutional before state bureaucrats can complete their work.

Judge paves way for win in Medicaid Expansion lawsuit

With two just issued court orders, a Franklin County (KY) Circuit Court judge changed the dynamics of Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear's plan to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare, increasing the likelihood of a tea party victory.

Judge Phillip Shepherd has effectively placed Tea Party activist David Adams, plaintiff in the case, on an even playing field with the Governor going forward in the case by forcing the Governor to answer questions about his ObamaCare actions, by setting a date for resolution of the case prior to ObamaCare open enrollment on October 1 and leaving the door open for stopping the Beshear Administration from making an end run around the process and signing Kentucky up for Medicaid expansion with the Obama Administration before the case is fully heard.

"Governor Beshear needs to follow proper procedure in Kentucky because our laws and our Constitution are stronger than those of the federal government in protecting individual rights," Adams said. "Of course, neither are any good if we don't use them. I appreciate Judge Shepherd for recognizing the value of our republican form of government and acting to restrain the Governor in this way. Without proper process, we couldn't win. With it, the facts and the Constitution speak for themselves and for us. Now we can win."

The application process for the Medicaid expansion is being managed by the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, whose very existence is in jeopardy with an August 1 hearing back in Judge Shepherd's courtroom.   

Beshear defaults

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has failed to respond to a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of his most potent political weapon, economic development incentives. The suit was filed on July 2; Beshear and Attorney General Jack Conway were served on July 3. 

"Governor Beshear has raised abusing this illegitimate power of picking winners and losers in the marketplace to an art form," David Adams, plaintiff in the lawsuit, said. 

"The flimsy legal case for doling out 'incentives' in Kentucky hinges on something called 'public purpose,' while the results of decades of this practice show that if we were really interested in serving the public we wouldn't be screwing around like this. The Kentucky Constitution literally demands that we stop the corporate welfare nonsense and lower regulatory costs on job creators if jobs are what we want to create." 

Beshear/Obama lose again in Kentucky

Gov. Steve Beshear lost another motion in court today when a Franklin Circuit judge refused to grant his request to skip discovery in a Tea Party case challenging the legality of Kentucky's ObamaCare Medicaid expansion.

Judge Phillip Shepherd set the next order of business as ruling on constitutionality of KRS 205.520(3), the statute Beshear cited as justification for attempting to accept a dramatic increase in the size of the state's Medicaid program.

"The law grants extraordinary power to the Governor to accept federal money for 'medical assistance' and that violates the plain language of Section 2 of the Kentucky Constitution," said David Adams, plaintiff in the case.

Section 2 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Kentucky says "Absolute and arbitrary power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a republic, not even in the largest majority."

KRS 205.520(3) says: Further, it is the policy of the Commonwealth to take advantage of all federal funds that may be available for medical assistance. To qualify for federal funds the secretary for health and family services may by regulation comply with any requirement that may be imposed or opportunity that may be presented by federal law. Nothing in KRS 205.510 to 205.630 is intended to limit the secretary's power in this respect.

Beshear sends ridiculous letter

Governor Steve Beshear has refused to answer even a single discovery question in our lawsuit to stop his illegal creation of the ObamaCare Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, so when I got a letter from his attorney today chastising me for investigating his unconstitutional Medicaid Expansion I had to laugh.

"Showing up unannounced at the offices of the Health Benefit Exchange is not an appropriate way to obtain information so long as your lawsuit is pending," wrote Beshear attorney Mark D. Guilfoyle. He asked me to submit questions to him in writing, including open records requests.

My suggestion to Mr. Guilfoyle (and Mr. Beshear hiding behind Guilfoyle's skirt) is that he (or perhaps, they) take the earliest possible opportunity to travel to somewhere near the middle of Mammoth Cave underground without navigational tools of any kind.

Click here to read the whole letter.

 

Beshear faked evidence nets Bar complaint

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear's latest court filing in his bid to force Kentucky into the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion without proper legislative approval may now put his license to practice law in jeopardy.

Tea Party activist David Adams, plaintiff in two lawsuits opposing Beshear's questionable ObamaCare actions, filed a Kentucky Bar Association complaint for evidence Beshear filed in the case which clearly was manufactured to advance his pro-Obama agenda.

"All you have to do is look," Adams said. "Beshear did this to himself and he should be held accountable."

Click here to view the entire complaint.

Humana actuary: our health rates going up 80% in Kentucky

A health insurance actuary at Humana testified in a Kentucky Department of Insurance rate filing document made publicly available today that his company's individual health premiums need to go up eighty percent in 2014 and that sixty percent of that increase is due to the ObamaCare requirement for all applications to be accepted.

Nicholas Mueller, the actuary, requested a rate increase of 91.3% on Humana plan KY71037 and 47.2% on KY71108 which he said is comparable to the current KY71037-01. The Kentucky Department of Insurance demanded $300 for a computer disk with all the new rate application information on it, but eventually relented today and let me look at it in their office.

Anthem's filing did not specifically reference a percentage increase from 2013 to 2014, but its average premium request for 2014 is 14.68% higher than Humana's.

The federally funded Kentucky Health Cooperative Inc. filing contained rates slightly cheaper than Anthem's.

Kentucky Governor accused of altering ObamaCare evidence

Establishment strikes back against Tea Party, again

Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker Greg Stumbo escaped scrutiny for their role in Kentucky's Medicaid expansion efforts today when Franklin Circuit Court Judge Phillip Shepherd dismissed them as defendants in a Tea Party lawsuit to halt the ObamaCare-related action.

 

 

Plaintiff David Adams expressed disappointment in the ruling, but said he wasn't surprised.

 

 

"Frankfort has gotten so far off the grid in terms of politicians acting outside their constitutionally dictated powers, I think there is great cause for concern both these men will abuse Kentuckians by trying to subvert the legal process and implement the ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. Technically that's speculation but there is substantial evidence to suggest that's the direction they are headed in and once they do it we will have a horrible time getting out of the mess it will create. Kentucky voters have no recourse until there is full and open debate in both chambers and roll call votes putting everyone properly on the record. The Court wasn't ready for that argument yet because this exact argument hasn't been tried before which is a shame because legislative immunity was never intended to protect the kind of lawlessness we see here, but we will try it again and again until it works or until dragging them into court becomes unnecessary."

 

 

"Nevertheless, the case goes on and there are still procedural mechanisms we can use to protect Kentuckians from this mess," Adams said.

 

 

Adams' motion for a temporary injunction halting all state efforts in the Medicaid expansion is scheduled for July 24 in Franklin Circuit Court.

Kentucky's pusillanimous potentate, Steve Beshear

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear responded to simple discovery questions this weekend with an objection stating that he is being oppressed in his illegal effort to implement ObamaCare in the Bluegrass State.

"Plaintiffs' insistence upon answers to their discovery requests is therefore oppressive and unduly burdensome," Beshear stated through his attorney.

The questions Beshear is so afraid of include "State whether one or more employees of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, while working for or being paid by the Commonwealth, expended time on researching, preparing, typing, printing, distributing or implementing Governor Steven Beshear's Executive Order 2012-587" and "Please provide a complete copy of all contracts entered into by the Commonwealth of Kentucky for use by the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange created by Executive Order 2012-587, with any seller or distributor of Blackberry or similar cellular telephones as well as with any provider of cellular phone service."

It's certainly understandable that the Governor would be terrified. Beshear refused to answer any of eight such questions.    

More broken windows in Kentucky, with a twist

Gov. Steve Beshear announced today with great fanfare the creation of 1300 new Kentucky jobs with a company called General Dynamics. He seriously downplayed the fact these workers will fulfill the company's federal ObamaCare "customer service" contract. 

In fact, you really have to know what you are looking for to find it in the announcement at all.

Worse, the state is doling out to the company up to $11.5 million in unconstitutional tax credits and "wage assessments" against the employees.

So, if you are keeping score at home, these are 1300 federally funded call center jobs created with borrowed money to "help" people navigate the web sites set up in states who refused to set up their own ObamaCare exchanges to buy health insurance with illegal tax subsidies to avoid illegal tax penalties that was supposed to be easier to purchase than before the exchanges and the customer service providers but isn't and was supposed to be cheaper to purchase before all the new regulations, taxes, subsidies, penalties and fees but isn't while Kentucky launches a similar contract with Xerox to provide similar services here with 100 employees who won't be needed when the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange is thrown out as illegal later this year by Kentucky courts. Maybe some of those people can then go to work on the federal exchange with General Dynamics, if the law and the exchanges are still around -- which they probably won't be.

Surely it would have been easier to just break a few windows.

KY Attorney General bails out on ObamaCare fight

Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway became the latest Democrat to chicken out of the fight for ObamaCare today with an announcement that he will not contest the Tea Party lawsuit challenging Frankfort's illegal Medicaid expansion.

Conway has publicly expressed an interest in running for Governor in 2015. He cited a "large volume of constitutional challenges" as reason for not coming to the aid of his party's health reform debacle.

"Obama's trainwreck is the worst kind of manmade disaster because it keeps rolling and the body count just keeps growing," said David Adams, plaintiff in the Medicaid expansion lawsuit. "Can't blame General Conway for throwing up his white flag and going into full retreat."

Don't miss Monday morning in Frankfort

Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker Greg Stumbo have the same lawyer in their legal effort to escape accountability for enabling Gov. Beshear's unconstitutional Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare.

That might not work out so well for them.

Their attorney filed a motion to dismiss them from the tea party lawsuit challenging Medicaid expansion in Kentucky with ten pages of blather about legislative immunity, lack of standing and the same illegitimate whining about the mailing of court documents Beshear tried in his failed motion for the same case.

Here is part of our response:

"Defendants misconstrue the purpose for their inclusion as defendants in this suit and thereby waste precious time and space arguing for an imaginary "absolute" immunity from suit supposedly to protect the integrity of the legislative process and ensure the very survival of "direct representative democracy." Every single reference to this "absolute" immunity in case law, statute or Constitution contains qualifiers and exceptions, of which Plaintiff only requires two: "breach" and "corruption." Plaintiff alleges both."

The hearing on this matter will take place on Monday, July 15 at 9am ET in Franklin Circuit Court at 669 Chamberlain Avenue in Frankfort. Should be Courtroom #3. In any event, Judge Phillip Shepherd is presiding. Hope to see you there.
 

Kentucky ObamaCare staring at trees, misses forest

An extensive study released today by the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange inadvertently trips all over the simple truth about necessary reforms but fails to see recognize it.

The following passage from the report sums this problem up perfectly:

"The overall finding of the study is that the health care workforce issues uncovered through this report are, and will continue to be, present with or without Medicaid Expansion, KHBE, or other programs across the Commonwealth. Intervention is needed to curb the trending decline of health care workforce capacity in relation to rising population demand, and no single approach will be the panacea."

It comes as no shock to anyone that "Medicaid Expansion, KHBE or other programs" combined will have no positive impact on shortages of medical professionals in Kentucky. Far more likely, these artificial market manipulations will have a negative effect, and quite possibly a large one.

Most telling, of course, is the end of the passage stating "no single approach will be the panacea." Spoken like a government committee paid by the "approach" and paid for perpetuating problems rather than solving problems and working themselves out of their highly paid jobs.

The single approach Kentuckians are looking for -- and won't get until we demand it -- is getting government's hands out of the process completely and letting supply and demand forces work to correct the multiple market imbalances created by government regulation run amok in healthcare these last few decades.

You can read the whole report here.

Beshear owes state $7784.90 and counting...

In court documents filed yesterday, Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange Executive Director Carrie Banahan testified "The Exchange was created pursuant to an Executive Order issued by the Governor on June 19, 2013." (emphasis added)

That date is interesting, because Banahan has been the Executive Director of Kentucky's ObamaCare "exchange" at an annual salary and benefits (state benefits, paid for by you) of $142,074.50 at least since May. Banahan was hired in July of 2012 to run the exchange and it was reported at the time that she would keep her old job until a replacement was hired. That apparently happened in May 2013.

The lawsuit challenging creation of the Kentucky exchange was based on a 2012 executive order that expired ninety days after the 2013 General Assembly session ended. Beshear then replaced that order with a new one, which KRS 12.028(5) clearly states he can not do:

However you slice it Banahan is out of a job soon, since there is no legal authority to create the position she now occupies at such a high cost. Governor Beshear should be made to reimburse the state for her salary and benefits since June 19, 2013 when he issued his bogus replacement executive order. 

Another embarrassing Beshear gambit

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear must be a terrible poker player.
 

Beshear, through his attorney in his quixotic legal effort blow up Kentucky's Medicaid program with hundreds of thousands of new recipients under the ObamaCare trainwreck, has attempted weakly to trick the plaintiff in Adams v. Beshear 13-CI-605 to throw away his case on a series of lies perpetratrated by Beshear.
 

"There are no material issues of fact in dispute," Beshear's attorney, Patrick Hughes, wrote today in a proposed order. "Therefore, there will be no discovery between the parties."
 

Nice try, Governor.
 

The first material issue of fact in the case is that Beshear has taken no action to effectuate the optional ObamaCare Medicaid expansion. Beshear's attorney made this claim in court and in writing and it is false. Discovery will show that. Beshear also claimed Kentucky can back out of the Medicaid expansion if (when) we find out that we can't afford it. This is also false, a fact also to be made clear in the discovery process. Beshear's attorney just got finished claiming in court that there is no factual record for the court to consider and that he should be handed the win as a result.
 

And now he wants to shut down the case before that same relevant information is placed on record with the court.
 

"There is a fine line between being overly bold and being stupid," David Adams, plaintiff, said. "I hope the Governor thinks twice before crossing it again. His unlawful actions are bad enough and don't need to be compounded by legal shenanigans. Kentuckians should be disgusted by this behavior and I think Gov. Beshear owes us all an apology for trying to subvert justice in this embarrassing fashion."