We interrupt your regularly scheduled media whitewash with lesson in basic news gathering

Lost in the hoopla about ObamaCare starting on Tuesday was real information about consumer reaction. Data released by various states seemed to show some interest in details about available health plans, but pretty low conversion into actual completed applications.

But that's as far as the reporting went. There remains nothing substantial in the media about ObamaCare costs for consumers, though we have tried to get them to examine what is now available to everyone.

So how is the public really responding to this? Are they actually buying it? What are they buying and why?

Can't find out if you don't ask, so we asked:

Kentucky is Ground Zero for new fight

Gov. Steve Beshear needs a bailout for his ObamaCare health exchange already and he is not likely to get it.

 

Kentucky will be charged with generating tens of millions of dollars to fund the new bureaucracy starting January 1, 2015, which means House Democrats and Senate Republicans must agree in the upcoming budget session starting in three months to find that money and then spend it on ObamaCare.

 

Fat chance.

 

"Gov. Beshear created this mess illegally and I hope the Kentucky Supreme Court clarifies the law for him very soon, but even if they don't there is no way the legislature plays along with this fool's errand," said David Adams, plaintiff in two ongoing lawsuits against ObamaCare in Kentucky.

 

"This is national news if you think about it at all," Adams said. "Kentucky is ground zero for stopping ObamaCare and this is just the beginning for dismantling big government in America with proper use of constitutional protections. Stay tuned."

Kentucky Obamacrats have until 6:00 am when truth hits

Yahoo.com's Marketwatch has an odd post up headlined "The 50 states of ObamaCare." It seeks to provide some insight into ObamaCare health premiums, but is unclear and meaningless in its analysis. That said, the most noteworthy aspect of this "50 state" snapshot is that it doesn't include numbers from all fifty states.

That's because Kentucky is still hiding their rates.

From the article:
"The report analyzed rates in 47 states and Washington, D.C., including those already released by states running their own exchanges, as well as prices in 36 states where the federal government is running the marketplace. Hawaii, Kentucky and Massachusetts have yet to disclose their rates."

All the blustering about ObamaCare being a great thing in Kentucky smacks hard into reality starting at 6:00 am when the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange web site goes live.

Tea Party stirs, wags, dominates

President Obama didn't just look small bellyaching about the Tea Party kicking him and the ruling class politicians in both parties around Washington D.C. He was dead wrong.

“One faction of one party in one house of Congress in one branch of government doesn’t get to shut down the entire government,” Mr. Obama told reporters Monday afternoon at the White House.

Check a copy of the United States Constitution, Mr. President. Don't hate the players, hate the game.

Tomorrow's not just another day

 

Governor Beshear continues ObamaCare trash-talking today in the Washington Post with a statement whose shelf life expires tomorrow:

 

"But I think opponents of the law are scared to death of being in position a year from now, where people look at them and wonder what all the noise was about as they sit here with an insurance policy that they can afford,” he said. 

 

We won't need a year, Governor. When the premiums for ObamaCare health plans are made widely available tomorrow, people will know that the "noise" is about shutting this ridiculous scheme down. Even with federal subsidies, the exchange plans are not going to be affordable. I have had these rates for three weeks. As soon as consumers consider the deductibles and co-payment requirements of these plans, they will understand why this critical information was kept from them for so long.

 

I will be at the Beshear ObamaCare pep rally at 10am in Louisville and look forward very much to seeing Kentucky media there and hearing all the excuses from Beshear and friends. Meanwhile, our two lawsuits whose purpose is shutting this nonsense down continue as we await Beshear's responses to Kentucky Supreme Court briefs.

Kentucky's public option plan gets puff-piece coverage

The Lexington Herald Leader printed an embarrassing piece of non-journalism today cheerleading for Kentucky's public option health plan, the Kentucky Health Cooperative. This new "insurance" company was created with federal dollars under ObamaCare. Janie Miller, the group's CEO and a former state insurance regulator, falsely claimed that she could not release premium rates until tomorrow.

Miller could release the premium rates if she wanted to and the Lexington Herald Leader had access to them three weeks ago but refused to even look. Here's why: a 21 year old male non-smoker in Lexington can currently get a $2500 deductible plan with 30% co-pay for $58.85. A similar plan with the co-op ($2000 deductible and 35% co-pay in network only) will cost the same person $155.84 in January. If this person has an $18,000 a year income, federal subsidy would drop his cost down to $64.65 with taxpayers picking up the difference. If this person has a $20,000 a year income, federal subsidy would put his cost at $85.17. If this person has a $26,000 a year income he will be considered "rich" and get no subsidy.

Miller also claims that 75% percent of Kentucky's uninsured population not eligible for Medicaid will sign up for ObamaCare coverage by December 15. That's completely insane and would not be allowed to go unanswered in a newspaper if we had a functioning media in this state.

The article is here.

Kentucky ObamaCare officials "befuddled"

ObamaCare pep rally in Louisville on Tuesday

A troika of Kentucky left-wing politicians will host an ObamaCare pep rally on Tuesday, October 1, 2013 in Louisville. Lieutenant Governor Jerry Abramson, Mayor Greg Fischer and Congressman John Yarmuth are expected to celebrate the federal launch at 10 am at Jefferson Community and Technical College in room 166B of the Health Science Building at the corner of 2nd and Chesnut.

Presumably they will be expected at some point to answer questions about the outrageous ObamaCare health premiums we have tried for three weeks to get the media to pay attention to. That should be interesting.

Come and see this in person if you can and help show that not everyone is fooled by big government games.

Beshear's Big Apple buffoonery

If Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear believes the crap he wrote in today's New York Times, he should be first in line for ObamaCare's new -- absurdly unaffordable -- mental health benefits.

"For the first time, we will make affordable health insurance available to every single citizen in the state," Beshear claims, falsely, in an op-ed.

First, we've seen the new ObamaCare rates despite the best efforts of the "most transparent" politicians in history and the big media sycophants who serve them. They aren't affordable even when federally subsidized. More important, health care was much more available and affordable before government started taking it over half a century ago. Beshear and Obama are merely completing that process.

Beshear flatly states, as he has many times before, that 308,000 Kentuckians will go from being uninsured to joining the ranks of those covered by Medicaid. While the number we should really be concerned with is that representing people who drop or forgo private coverage in favor of joining Medicaid, giving people a Medicaid card and making it illegal for them to purchase private coverage on the exchange (as ObamaCare does) will mean less than nothing as providers run away from Medicaid and leave longer lines for lower quality services.

Beshear repeats his claims that Medicaid expansion will be a positive for the economy in Kentucky. How many such false claims must we endure before the fact that big government redistribution schemes don't grow the economy sinks in?

Beshear says 332,000 uninsured Kentuckians will have gain newfound access to affordable coverage with ObamaCare. This lie will be unmasked in dramatic fashion on Tuesday when the well-hidden premiums (and deductibles) are pulled out of hiding and into the daylight.

Beshear finishes his essay as he has all of his ObamaCare speeches -- with a political attack. The hard cold fact Beshear hopes to keep hidden (and his big media friends are doing a great job of assisting) is that Beshear broke the law in a profound way in promoting ObamaCare simply because he wanted to and thought no one would act to stop him. His July 2012 executive order creating the new bureaucracy we know as the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange reorganized state government, rewrote state law and mandated expenditures without legislative approval. KRS 12.028 provides for the governor to do so on a temporary basis, but requires ratification by the full legislature in the next succeeding General Assembly session. Failing that, the statute mandates expiration of the temporary order's provisions ninety days after the session ends. On that ninetieth day, Beshear issued a second executive order re-creating the "exchange," which is also prohibited by the same statute. Think about it: if the governor is allowed to make desired temporary changes to state government without required legislative approval and simply rewrite those changes when they expire, why do we even bother having a legislature at all? A governor so empowered could make any change to statute, raise any tax and spend any amount of money without a legislative vote. Supporters of ObamaCare and Beshear's big-government, left wing ideas may reconsider their zeal for this kind of illegal behavior when the governor is a conservative Republican. But then it will be too late.

Beshear acted with similar lawlessness in effecting the Medicaid expansion. KRS 205.520(3) requires the governor to seek administrative review of actions attempting to achieve additional federal dollars for "medical assistance." This process is spelled out very clearly in KRS 13A. He failed to even initiate this process and now, as the law makes clear, it is too late to even start. The law demands that the Medicaid expansion under ObamaCare can never happen in Kentucky.

Both the illegal creation of the ObamaCare exchange in Kentucky and the Medicaid expansion are being actively challenged in Kentucky's courts right now. Briefs have been filed with the Kentucky Supreme Court and a response from Beshear is pending. Kentuckians will ultimately get the kind of government we deserve; I can only hope we realize that we and our progeny deserve better than this.

Feel better about wasting $252 million now?

Kentucky ObamaCare head crumbles in committee

The executive director of Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange couldn't answer legislator questions today in Frankfort about outrageous deductibles on 2014 ObamaCare health plans or about state funding for the exchange when federal funds run out at the end of 2014.

Carrie Banahan mumbled and demurred during today's budget committee meeting and did not answer direct questions about how unaffordable even the most subsidized health plans will be in Kentucky under ObamaCare. She adamantly declared ignorance when asked specifically how the state would pay for its illegal exchange.

The illegal executive order filed by Gov. Steve Beshear in 2013 to create the exchange also attempts to create a funding mechanism for the exchange with a new insurance tax. That executive order, if the Kentucky Supreme Court doesn't throw it out first, would have to be ratified by the 2014 General Assembly. There is no chance of that happening.

Kentucky's 2014 Humana ObamaCare subsidized health premium rates shockingly high

A 25 year old single Franklin County, Kentucky non-smoker with a $25,000 annual income purchasing a Humana Silver plan effective January 1, 2014 will pay $144.17 per month for a $3250 deductible plan that pays all approved medical expenses after a $4750 maximum out of pocket limit is reached and all applicable federal subsidies are applied. Humana currently offers on ehealthinsurance.com a $3500 deductible plan with $3500 maximum out of pocket plan for the same person with a monthly premium of $86.57. Humana claims significant rate reductions in their 2014 approved rate request filing with the Kentucky Department of Insurance by limiting provider networks available to their customers.

Incidentally, this premium applies to all ages at this income level. Unsubsidized, this plan will cost $243.81 for an 18 year old and go higher from there based on age.

The same 25 year old person with a $40,000 annual income will receive no federal subsidy and will face a monthly premium of $206.87 for the closest available plan, in which the unsubsidized deductible is increased to $4600 and the unsubsidized maximum out of pocket limit is increased to $6300.

A 50 year old single Franklin County, Kentucky non-smoker with a $40,000 annual income purchasing a Humana Silver plan effective January 1, 2014 will pay $316.67 per month for a $4600 deductible plan that pays all approved medical expenses after a $6300 maximum out of pocket limit is reached and all applicable federal subsidies are applied. Humana currently offers on ehealthinsurance.com a $5000 deductible plan with $5000 maximum out of pocket plan for the same person with a monthly premium of $176.46. Humana claims significant rate reductions in their 2014 approved rate request filing with the Kentucky Department of Insurance by limiting provider networks available to their customers.

The unsubsidized premium for the same 50 year old would be $368.01 per month.

A Franklin County non-smoker with a $16,000 income purchasing a Humana Silver plan effective January 1, 2014 will pay $44.92 per month for a $3250 deductible plan that pays all approved medical expenses after a $4750 maximum out of pocket limit is reached and all applicable federal subsidies are applied. That means this person would have to spend more than twenty percent of his or her annual income before gaining the benefit of major medical health insurance.

Beshear plan to dump state employees moves forward

Governor Steve Beshear sent two lawyers to talk to the Committee on State Government today in Frankfort about wild cost increases in the state employee health plan.

Commissioner of the Department of Employee Insurance Joe Cowles attempted to deflect attention from increased costs and it mostly worked. Some legislators complained about a high volume of calls from state workers shocked by their 2014 plans, but their concerns, if any, were eerily low-key.

Senator Ernie Harris told Cowles that the Administration's plans might "save the state." They are being led like lambs to slaughter. Tomorrow at 1pm, the same dog-and-pony show goes before the Appropriations and Revenue Committee, which just might have reason to be a little more attentive.

Pitchforks and torches for Mitch McConnell right now

Hundreds of concerned Kentucky citizens will converge on Sen. Mitch McConnell's Louisville office at 11am Wednesday morning to shake him up on ObamaCare.

At issue is Sen. McConnell's insistence on allowing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to remove continuing resolution ObamaCare defunding language with only a majority of senators, rather than 60. McConnell's actions, in keeping with his long-standing fight against conservatives on this, would make defunding ObamaCare harder.

McConnell is running very misleading ads on television in Kentucky portraying himself as an ObamaCare opponent while he works behind the scenes to undermine conservative efforts to kill the federal takeover of the American healthcare system.

McConnell insists privately that caving in and waiting for the law to fail under its own weight will work to end ObamaCare. We are still waiting for that strategy to work with defeating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Beshear fines Humana $65,000 for telling truth about rates

Humana sent letters out to health insurance customers in Kentucky this summer warning them that ObamaCare will cause their premiums to explode upward in January and advising them how to limit harm to their personal finances caused by radical left-wing politicians. The Kentucky Department of Insurance fined Humana $65,000 in August for their efforts, in every way punishing them for telling the truth.

Gov. Steve Beshear has repeatedly violated state law to ram through ObamaCare, by creating an ObamaCare "exchange" at state taxpayer expense without legislative approval and by expanding Medicaid without completing legally required administrative review. Both of these issues are on their way to the Kentucky Supreme Court. Punishing truth-telling with massive fines is certainly in keeping with Beshear's disdain for the rule of law, but continued silence by Republican "leaders" should disgust every Kentuckian.

We must criminalize violations of KRS 12.028 and KRS 205.520(3) to ease removal of politicians like Beshear for subverting the legislative process.

Beshear crushes Kentucky's poor

Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear has spent four months filling desperate citizens with false hope promoting an impossible ObamaCare pipedream and the time has come for him to face the music.

Kentucky Supreme Court case 2013-SC-000652-T represents the first step toward getting Gov. Beshear right with our state's most vulnerable people by nullifying his illegal attempt to expand Medicaid eligibility, a state option under the Affordable Care Act.

"Governor Beshear has broken the law, lied in court and lied to the people of Kentucky promoting a ridiculous ObamaCare scheme that becomes more hated as more information becomes available," said David Adams, plaintiff in the lawsuit.

"Beshear is now hiding behind court rules to delay into October well-deserved punishment for his crimes," Adams said. "If he has any pride left he should respond immediately to the Supreme Court so we can get all this out in the open before wasting billions of dollars further wrecking our healthcare system."

Beshear violated KRS 205.520(3) by not initiating the KRS 13A administrative review process of the proposed Medicaid expansion, falsified court documents to downplay risks of accepting the expansion and has falsely portrayed Medicaid expansion as initially cost-free to the Commonwealth, risk-free to our existing Medicaid population and revenue-positive to the General Fund.

Obama/Beshear drop Syria, declare war on Kentucky

The Obama Administration's Environmental Protection Agency is set to post new regulations, perhaps today, that would make building of new coal-fired power plants impossible anywhere in America.

This action would hasten an untimely death for affordable electricity in Kentucky. Obama's advocacy for killing coal deserves a stronger response from the Bluegrass State than Governor Steve Beshear's squishy letter to the EPA, especially after Beshear has done backflips for the President in subverting state law trying to force job-killing ObamaCare on us, too.

Come on, Gov. Beshear. You can do better than this.

Why Kentucky probably won't have Anthem in a year

When Kentucky politicians rammed through their version of HillaryCare in 1994, all the individual health plans but Anthem fled the state. In 2014, it's payback time and Anthem will pay very hard.

Only three insurers will play in Kentucky's ObamaCare "exchange" and Anthem will be the most expensive, by a long shot. Worse, I ran my family's ages through Anthem's current and 2014 rate charts and found their premiums more than doubling as ObamaCare takes full effect in January.

Humana will be a major beneficiary of the likely demise of Anthem, but the real winner appears to be the federally-created Kentucky Health Cooperative with the state's lowest premiums. In other words, the single-payer dream has almost been fulfilled in Kentucky.

All the more reason to keep the pressure up on Kentucky's incompetent and destructive health regulation bureaucracy with three state lawsuits headed to the Kentucky Supreme Court and more on the way soon. Stay tuned for details.

Kentucky's ObamaCare fight moves to state Supreme Court

Kentucky's tea party challenge to state implementation of ObamaCare took a big step forward today with the first in a series of arguments to reach the Commonwealth's Supreme Court.

David Adams said the case centered on preventing "improper and illegal use of government powers to effect an optional expansion of Kentucky's Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act."

Adams is petitioning the Court to transfer his appeal immediately from the Court of Appeals in order to gain a faster resolution to the case. Governor Steve Beshear and Cabinet for Health and Family Services Secretary Audrey Haynes are the Respondents.

"Respondents cited KRS 205.520(3) and KRS 194A.050(1) as providing justification for their actions, while ignoring that both statutes explicitly call for the Commonwealth's regulatory review process to be engaged and completed," Adams said. "That is the first key fact in this case, but it was ignored by Respondents and by the Circuit Court."

Beshear and Haynes have claimed throughout the case that legal limits on their powers under state statute were of no consequence because they are merely obeying federal law and that the expansion can be reversed later at the state's option when it becomes clear the expansion is unaffordable and not a workable solution to the state's indigent care problem. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, made clear that the Medicaid expansion is optional for states and the supposed state withdrawal option simply does not exist.

The issue of the false claim of a state exit strategy was a contentious one in Franklin Circuit Court written and oral arguments, but was ignored by Judge Phillip Shepherd in his September 3 ruling in favor of the Medicaid expansion.

Governor Beshear's failure to follow Kentucky's administrative review process earlier this year when there was time to complete the process legally -- it can easily take nine months for a contentious issue -- now boxes him in to claiming that there is no process limiting his actions, despite ample clarity in statute. Inexplicably, that strategy worked in the Circuit Court. It is now a key part of the appeal.

"KRS 13A.090 states 'the courts shall take judicial notice of any administrative regulation duly filed under the provisions of this chapter after the administrative regulation has been adopted.' In this instance, an administrative action effecting the optional Medicaid expansion was neither 'duly filed' nor 'adopted' pursuant to Kentucky law," Adams said. "The Franklin Circuit Court ignored those facts and recognized a regulation that does not exist."

Adams said the time for initiating the process of accepting the Medicaid expansion has now passed.

"Before required public hearings, discussion and votes could take place to possibly adopt the administrative regulation necessary to effect the ACA Medicaid expansion, the provision would pass beyond being a state option as it is now to becoming a part of permanent federal law on January 1, 2014 without legal and proper completion of the review process required by KRS 13A," Adams said. "The law, once subverted in this way, renders the voice of the people silent in all matters proscribed by law to be governed by regulatory review."

The two sides now await word from the Supreme Court to set up a hearing schedule.

Much cheaper to throw state employees into ObamaCare

The individual per person cost of insuring a Kentucky state employee under their new plan in 2014 will be $933.16 a month. That applies to every individual employee regardless of any factors that might otherwise impact an insurance premium rate. Under ObamaCare, a Louisville resident age 64, non-smoker who chooses a $6300 deductible will have a total cost of insurance of $905.73 a month if he uses up all of his deductible.

Most state employees, obviously, are less than 64 and won't use up all of a $6300 deductible for the Bronze plan, which is projected to be the most popular ObamaCare plan.

I've had several legislators tell me Gov. Beshear can't throw the state employees into ObamaCare without legislative approval. That, of course, depends on what the Kentucky Supreme Court thinks KRS 12.028 means when it says the same thing.

And to be clear, this is no endorsement of ObamaCare. It's just that the state employee plan was purposely set up this year to be far worse even than that. A 26 year old Louisville resident and non-smoker on the same ObamaCare plan will have a monthly cost of $659.95. That's horrible compared to 2013, but a bargain compared to costs on the state plan.