2015 GOP gubernatorial race's missing ingredient

Just got an email from the Hal Heiner for Governor campaign touting a 28-22 lead over James Comer. As much as I like Hal and appreciate his work particularly on education, it's pretty hard to miss the real news in the polling he mentions.

Hal isn't winning.

The headline on the campaign email says Heiner has "taken the lead" but the poll shows him either in 2nd or 3rd. If you throw Matt Bevin into the mix, the Hal is running behind "Not sure" and Bevin. If the race is between Heiner and Comer only, Hal trails "Not sure." By a lot, in both cases.

I'm not sure Matt Bevin will get into this race, but I know that if he did the first thing he would do is put up a web site with a page dedicated to explaining his positions on the issues. Hal has the only official campaign in the race but has yet to do that.

When the issues get the attention they deserve, there are several Kentucky candidates must address. Following state law and getting Kentucky out of ObamaCare is a total no-brainer. Dropping out of the federal "War on marijuana" is perhaps not as obvious yet, but it will be. Deregulating healthcare any way we can should be another easy one with quick, positive results -- starting with repealing certificate of need laws and reducing the scope of Department of Insurance regulation of health coverage. Opting out of federal control of public education must be a top priority of our next governor. Ending Kentucky's ridiculous corporate welfare game and seriously addressing public employee pensions are also winning ideas that can't wait for a champion.

We've suffered long enough under popularity contests and mud-slinging determining who runs our government. If you see a candidate or potential candidate ask them to get specific right away.

Joe Sonka: I see insured people!

Left-wing journalist Joe Sonka has a very funny way of advocating for ObamaCare in Kentucky. His latest effort reminded me a lot of the line from the spooky, supernatural "The Sixth Sense" movie from 1999 in which the main character whispered eerily "I see dead people."

Sonka is upset that Alison Grimes took her U.S. Senate campaign to Perry County without mentioning the "Affordable Care Act."

Sonka:

But an examination of enrollment numbers through Kynect, Kentucky’s state insurance exchange made possible by the Affordable Care Act, shows that the uninsured rate dropped more dramatically in Perry County (where Hazard is located) than in any other Kentucky county.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Small Area Health Insurance Estimates, in 2012 there were 19,773 residents in Perry County with health insurance coverage, and 4,202 residents with no coverage. However, by the signup deadline this April, 5,509 people in Perry County had signed up for insurance through Kynect. Assuming the Beshear administration’s statewide estimate that 75 percent of Kynect enrollees were not previously insured (as stated on their application), this means Perry County’s uninsured rate may have dropped from over 17 percent to less than 1 percent.

We are deep into imaginary friend territory here. No one knows how wildly inaccurate the Census Bureau's guess at rates of coverage by health insurance are, but we can only hope it's not worse than Beshear's ridiculous twin claims that 75% of exchange health insurance enrollees were previously uninsured as were 75% of ObamaCare Medicaid enrollees. Current and former "exchange" employees and contractors reported repeatedly that their computers kicked out entries defining applicants as possessing prior insurance coverage, so it is very safe to assume Beshear simply made up both numbers.

Taking two very questionable data points and concluding from them that the uninsured rate in Perry County "may have dropped from over 17 percent to less than 1 percent," much less that the fantasy should be touted as fact in a U.S. Senate race, may run a thrill up the leg of Obamacrats and Beshear lackeys, but such science fiction writing does nothing to advance real public policy discussion.

University of Kentucky student health plan covers abortion

Kentucky law forbids health insurance companies from covering abortions except in the case of saving the life of the mother, but United Healthcare's student plan at the University of Kentucky covers elective abortions.

At the bottom of page 23 of the plan document under the headline "Benefits for Elective Abortion," it reads: The exclusion will be waived and benefits will be paid for elective abortion as for any other Sickness."

"Elective abortion" is also listed under "Exclusions and Limitations" in the policy, but "elective" is defined in the policy on page 25 as services that "do not meet the health care need for a Sickness or Injury," services deemed experimental or "not recognized and generally accepted medical practices in the United States." In other words, the policy makes no distinction between a legal abortion and an illegal abortion. It covers them all.

I guess the folks at UK figure it is cheaper to pay for abortions than for delivery of a child.

We've dealt with the Beshear administration's lack of honesty on this issue before.

WellCare of Kentucky not paying Medicaid doctors

Sources report Medicaid managed care provider WellCare of Kentucky has stopped reimbursing doctors whose patients present their coverage for payment.

Doctors' office personnel are currently turning away WellCare members and urging them to call Governor Steve Beshear. Kentucky has added over 600,000 people to the Medicaid rolls under ObamaCare.

This failure was not difficult to predict.

"'Counting ObamaCare 'success' one Medicaid recipient at a time is for people who enjoy playing hide-and-seek alone," said David Adams, plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking clarification of the law Beshear violated in signing Kentucky up for the optional ObamaCare Medicaid expansion.

Supreme Court justice shows stronger sign of gubernatorial run

Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Will T. Scott has recused himself from involvement in the Court's two ObamaCare lawsuits, likely signaling a campaign for the the Republican nomination for Governor.

Justice Scott told the Lexington Herald Leader last month he was considering making a run and there is no other readily apparent reason for him to step down from hearing the ObamaCare cases.

The timing of the recusal also points to likely imminent action from the Court on the cases.

"Continuing to allow Gov. Beshear's ObamaCare charade to drag on with him continuing to fail to make implementation legal serves no purpose unless you enjoy watching MSNBC hosts slobber all over him," said David Adams, plaintiff in the two lawsuits challenging legality of ObamaCare implementation in Kentucky.

Beshear puts more lipstick on ObamaCare pig

The Interim Committee on Health and Welfare voted today in favor of Gov. Steve Beshear's third attempt to make ObamaCare legal in Kentucky, but there remains no chance whatsoever that his latest executive order will be ratified by the entire General Assembly. And that is what matters.

"The legal case for ObamaCare in Kentucky gets thinner by the day as illegal state expenditures pile up and nothing can be done to make it fit state law," said David Adams, plaintiff in two state lawsuits seeking clarification of already-pretty-clear state law forbidding Beshear's unilateral acceptance of optional portions of the "Affordable Care Act." "Kentucky's brain dead media would be all over this if the governor breaking the law so egregiously were a Republican or if there were an extramarital sex act involved."

The symbolic vote passed 11-7 with eleven yes votes coming from Democrats and seven no votes from Republicans. Nine committee members missed the meeting, including seven Republicans.

"Follow the Constitution" is GOP ticket in 2014

Republican candidates who want to maximize GOP voter turnout as well as attracting voters registered otherwise would do very well to focus on the rule of law and the ways in which their opponents fall short on that front.

A Tea Party Patriots poll of Republican voters across the country finds nearly all of them believe the most important issue involves a failure of government to follow the rule of law. The best answer from Democrats to complaints about their illegal tactics is to attempt to justify their actions.

Our prisons are full of people who, like these Democratic politicans, demonstrate failure to grasp why flouting constitutional and statutory restrictions on their actions is inherently bad.

Pointing this out repeatedly and keeping the discussion on opponents' problems with the rule of law should be fertile electoral policy any time, but seems to be especially so now.

For federal candidates, questions to ask involve your opponents' support for any number of the president's illegal and unconstitutional actions including asking why the opponent supports or does not support them. State candidates would do very well to look into Gov. Beshear's many illegal actions regarding ObamaCare implementation and question their opponents in a similar manner.

Leftists trying to microchip subsidies into ObamaCare

ObamaCare opponent overreach is an unfortunately common frustration for those trying to fight the federal takeover of our healthcare system by steadily bringing in supporters based on undeniable facts. An example of this is the claim that ObamaCare calls for Americans to micro-chipped as part of the law.

Something like that was in an early version of the ObamaCare bill, but never made it into law.

The funny thing is ObamaCare apologists freaking out over the idea that they might be held to the actual language in the law and not what their intentions are have taken up the same tactic of trying to distract people by quoting from old versions of the ObamaCare bill.

Greg Sargent, a Washington Post columnist, makes the silly argument that we have to ignore the language in the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" and run ObamaCare taxes and subsidies in states that opted out of setting up an exchange because an earlier version of the bill said something about taxes and subsidies flowing through both federal and state exchanges.

I've been explaining to friends for the last few years that ObamaCare doesn't require insertion of microchips, but as fast and loose as Obamacrats are with the rule of law maybe we can't be so sure.

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."