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.