Time for Matt Bevin to get religion on marijuana

Matt Bevin is already at least half a step better than Jack Conway on marijuana legalization, but an Ohio ballot initiative certified for the November ballot yesterday may make this a more meaningful issue in our fall campaign.

On November 3, Ohio voters will decide if marijuana will be legalized for medical and recreational use. Polling suggests passage is likely. As a bordering state, Kentucky would then be faced with needing to either further expand our own failed drug war activity or not.

"Jack Conway is a lost cause -- a big government drug warrior -- who doesn't count costs of bad government schemes, but Matt Bevin has shown signs of being teachable on this," said Kentucky Progress publisher David Adams. "Kentucky farmers should lead the nation in marijuana production and Matt Bevin just needs to recognize the opportunity and pick it up and run with it."

Leading Frankfort Obamacrat gets defensive

The two greatest assets Frankfort administrators of ObamaCare have had in supporting their scheme are taxpayer money and unwillingness of news reporters to ask real questions. That may have started to change.

Former Courier Journal reporter Al Cross runs a site called Kentucky Health News which has picked up on the Kentucky Health Cooperative's dismal results. In a post published yesterday, Kentucky Health Cooperative Chairman Joseph E. Smith was asked why his organization is losing money faster than any other health co-op in the nation. His answers were revealing and should lead to more questions.

Smith cited three excuses, none of which hold water. Asked to explain KYHC's massive 2014 losses, Smith blamed reserve requirements, medical claims and grandfathered health plans. We already know health co-op reserve requirements have been grossly manipulated to benefit co-ops. And everyone should know that reserve requirements don't impact a profit-and-loss statement. Kudos to Al Cross and Kentucky Health News for exposing the fact the Kentucky Health Cooperative cannot withstand the slightest scrutiny.

And it gets worse.

Smith said Kentucky Health Cooperative got nearly all the sickest Kentuckians who had been kicked off their pre-ObamaCare coverage. This should come as no surprise to anyone, because KYHC underbid Anthem and Humana significantly on premiums. They did this intentionally to justify their paychecks and in hopes of attracting more federal funds. Whining about that now just because the congressional gravy train has stopped running for co-ops also does not explain why Kentucky's is the worst one.

And then Smith blames the existence of grandfathered health plans, which also has no bearing on annual earnings. Smith should be dragged around the circuit and forced to clarify his answers so all can see Frankfort Obamacrats have no real answers. Cross should let his nose for news overrule his heart for ObamaCare and stay on this story.

Please, Matt Bevin, take the lead on this.

How Matt Bevin can shut down the Kentucky Health Cooperative by himself by the end of 2015

Matt Bevin can and should immediately pledge to take a simple step to eliminate the insolvent Kentucky Health Cooperative before its failed business model hurts any more Kentuckians.

Among many disastrous provisions of ObamaCare was creation of "public option" non-profit cooperatives funded by enormous federal loans to compete with existing health insurance companies on an uneven playing field.

Federal regulation 45 CFR 156.520(a)(2) made clear that the intent of the "Affordable Care Act" was to work around state laws to rig up ways to help cooperatives avoid solvency requirements and show these federal loans as assets rather than what they obviously are -- liabilities. Kentucky's Insurance Code, long a porous mess for big-government activist regulators, gives an Insurance Commissioner extremely wide latitude in deeming an insurance company's liabilities as assets, consumers be damned.

If elected Governor, Bevin gets to appoint an Insurance Commissioner. His appointee could then deem Kentucky Health Cooperative's loans as liabilities and order the insolvent insurer to shut down immediately to protect consumers. Continuing to prop up the law with illegitimate executive orders and regulations serves only to delay real reform.

This is a great election issue because it exposes another ObamaCare fraud and puts Jack Conway in the position of assisting his political pals in defrauding consumers or angering his left-wing base.

Audit: Kentucky Health Co-op worst in America

The Kentucky Health Cooperative lost more money -- $50.4 million -- in 2014 than any other ObamaCare-created "public-option" non-profit health insurer in the nation, according to a new federal audit.

"Frankfort's corruption and incompetence is on full display in the Kentucky Health Cooperative and it should be shut down immediately," said leading ObamaCare opponent David Adams. "It's as simple as making them understand the taxpayer money flow they have run on the last two years is all gone for this experiment in socialized medicine."

Don't believe Beshear's budget baloney

Gov. Steve Beshear announced today an $82.5 million budget surplus for the fiscal year ended June 30, but don't expect our bankers or credit rating agencies to show any signs of believing him. They have been down this road before.

"This announcement is for the benefit of the rubes at the Associated Press and anyone else who needs to believe Obamanomics is doing something other than bankrupting us," said tea party activist David Adams. "Frankfort will put out required financial documents to the state's creditors at Christmas time and it will show our annual budget situation hundreds of millions of dollars worse than today's announcement without, they hope, getting found out before the elections."

Beshear silence on military gun ban reflects administration's -- and son's -- "brain-free zone"

Kentucky should have been one of the first states to end the heinous practice of protecting soldiers on American military bases with little printed signs forbidding anyone to carry a firearm. Governor Steve Beshear's failure to take any such action in the wake of last Thursday's deadly terrorist attack on military personnel in Chattanooga speaks volumes about his allegiance to national Anti-Second Amendment zealots.

And it speaks volumes about his son, Andy Beshear, who wants to ride his father's coattails into office as Kentucky's next Attorney General. So far six states with Republican governors have taken steps to eliminate military "gun-free zones" in their states and many more are sure to follow, keeping the issue alive through the November election.

As the rest of the nation wakes up to the stupidity of pretending to care about safety by banning guns, this will be a great issue for showing definitively that Andy Beshear isn't one of us. And the time for changing course on this with any shred of credibility has passed.

CN2 misleads on Kentucky ObamaCare

Time Warner cable's news program CN2 reported on Kentucky's ObamaCare debacle Wednesday of this week in a fashion that is not entirely accurate and may leave their viewers with a false view of the legal status of federal healthcare reform in the Commonwealth.

In reporting on an interim committee hearing of Gov. Steve Beshear's fourth executive order in as many years attempting to create the "Kynect" ObamaCare exchange in Kentucky, CN2 claimed incorrectly and without attributing their conclusion to anyone that a party line committee vote gave Beshear's action some legal status.

"The debate preceded an 11-11 party-line vote to approve this year’s version of Gov. Steve Beshear’s executive order establishing kynect," reporter Kevin Wheatley wrote. "The tie vote allows the order to remain in effect."

In fact, the vote has no impact on the status of the order, which will certainly fail in the 2016 General Assembly just as the three prior orders have. According to KRS 12.028(4), an interim committee "shall review and report" on a temporary reorganization executive order but its power ends there. Indeed, the statute specifies "(i)f the committee does not report on a proposed plan within the time specified in this subsection, the plan shall be considered reviewed." That means Beshear's executive order would hold the exact same position in state law if no vote had been held at all.

The vote that matters comes before April 15 of next year, if at all. CN2 owes its readers and/or viewers an apology for its sloppy reporting. The legal effort bring a decisive halt to the illegitimate Beshear effort to usurp legislative authority in this way continues.

Associated Press fakes KY budget "surplus"

One week ago, when the Gov. Steve Beshear administration announced record state government tax and fee income "revenues," Budget Director Jane Driskell made clear that only half of the ledger had been revealed: "We have now closed the books on revenues and will close the books on the expenditure side later this month. The determination of the budget surplus will be made at that time."

But that didn't stop the overeager cheerleaders at the Associated Press from immediately gushing about a "surplus."

"Kentucky taxpayers got good news and bad news on Friday on the state's budget," the AP reported.

"The good news is the state finished the fiscal year with a $165.4 million surplus in the general fund. But the bad news is the state's road fund has a $20 million shortfall."

The Associated Press has gotten so comfortable carrying water for a failed Beshear administration they've even tossed aside the most basic accounting calculation without prompting. A surplus or deficit is determined by subtracting expenditures from revenues, not revenues from expected revenues. We should have a little more accurate picture of Frankfort's finances when the expenditure total is made public any day now and then far more accuracy in late December when the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report is published.

Merge this: Kentucky Humana ObamaCare plans' 25.8% increase coming in January

Frankfort Obamacrats have approved another enormous health insurance rate increase for 2016, with Humana's rate hike topping out at 25.8%. That's on top of previous increases from Anthem (29.4%) and Kentucky Health Cooperative (30.9%), according to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

"Socialism and Fascism got us into this mess and only Capitalism will get us out," said ObamaCare opponent David Adams. "I'd gladly challenge any elected or appointed state official or newspaper columnist with a paid subscriber base of at least 20,000 to publicly debate this point, but we all know they are too afraid to do it."

More Kentucky ObamaCare failure confirmed

The Kentucky Health Cooperative's individual ObamaCare health plans have been approved this week for all the massive rate increases they requested earlier this year, according to the Kentucky Department of Insurance.

"This has been a bad week for victims of Kentucky ObamaCare hoping they wouldn't really get up to a 30 percent rate hike on their health insurance," said ObamaCare opponent David Adams. "Governor Beshear owes us all an apology for feeding us this garbage."

Frankfort Obamacrats quietly grant Anthem 29.4% rate increase for 2016 in Kentucky

The hits keep coming against Kentucky consumers with approval of Anthem ObamaCare health insurance 2016 premiums in the state topping out at 29.4% more than in 2015. The Kentucky Department of Insurance reported Anthem's rate increases were approved as requested late yesterday.

"This is the death spiral everyone has seen coming; it's Economics 101," said ObamaCare opponent David Adams. "The U.S. Supreme Court's mental backflips on the 'Affordable Care Act' have given aid and comfort only to people who make their living raping American consumers. They are making a pretty strong case for bringing back public flogging."

Obamacrat rubber-stamping yields a surprise

Kentucky's 2016 ObamaCare premiums are starting to get federal approval this week and while the big talk about regulators negotiating rates down for consumers has proven again and again to be hot air, the winds of change appear to have blown in something else: actual stealth tax increases.

An entry on Obama's "Healthcare.gov" site this morning approving a Kentucky Health Cooperative Platinum plan rate increase request of 19.99% includes the following shocking sentence under the heading "Insurer's Rate Increase Justification": "The increase in overall rates is based on higher than expected enrollment in plans, unexpectedly high claims experience, and an increase in administrative costs including increased federal and state taxes, GAP assessments and reinsurance." (emphasis added)

When, exactly, did we approve these increased taxes in 2015 to impact 2016 ObamaCare?

Humana, Aetna merger part of ObamaCare's new 'Forty acres and a mule' empty promise

Just as freed slaves languished post-Civil War expecting forty acres and a mule promised by federal authorities, healthcare consumers wait in vain for better service and lower prices while Obamacrats enrich themselves amid escalating costs and wait times. Today's announced merger between Humana and Aetna provides another high profile milestone in the federal takeover of healthcare in America.

Healthcare consumers are literally being rounded up into smaller pens by giant federally-shielded insurers, given fewer and fewer avenues for redress of grievances and nothing but lip service from state regulators. As if on cue, the ridiculous Kentucky Department of Insurance issued a statement promising "a thorough evaluation of the (merger) proposal" with "particular attention paid to the ... impact on policyholders."

"A henhouse guarded by foxes has better odds than insurance consumers hoping for protection from these government regulators," said ObamaCare opponent David Adams. "Matt Bevin's consumer-friendly proposal to end Kentucky's ruinous certificate of need racket stands even more in stark contrast with the Frankfort status quo perpetuated by these mindless bureaucrats."

New day in Kentucky close enough to taste

Most Kentuckians have yearned for a powerful news source to balance out the far left bias of our state-based news media for many years and the wait is now all but over.

Yes, I know I said the same thing six months ago, but the website for Kentucky Today is currently up. It's in soft launch mode, but a full-blown "progressive" freak out is in order. The site should be fully functioning in less than two weeks.

Kentucky Today's focus may be a little heavy on the social issues for some, but demand for simple, honest general news reporting from journalists has created an enormous opportunity in the marketplace. Editor Roger Alford is well aware of that opportunity and is committed to serving the huge segment of Kentuckians disappointed and left behind by the mainstream media.

I expect the Kentucky Today model to change the way Frankfort operates pretty quickly and it will if we add our voices to it right away and keep it going. The site is set up for comments and the staff is intensely interested in gaining more readers than the other state papers right away. Being part of that process should be exciting. Jump in!

ObamaCare fight continues and we're winning

Lost in all the gloom surrounding another terrible U.S. Supreme Court ruling on ObamaCare is the narrowing focus on federal health reform to whether or not it is working. And it isn't.

Data on uninsured Americans has always been highly suspect and that has only gotten worse as the left shifted from manufacturing a crisis to attempting to show they have fixed the problem.

Government intervention in healthcare has been the main driver of increasing costs and declining customer service quality in recent decades and this failure was barely camouflaged by an unprecedented technological boom in the industry before ObamaCare made it worse. The bad financial news surrounding ObamaCare will only increase in volume and frequency in the days ahead and that argument is not one Obamacrats can bluster their way out of.

Political case for ObamaCare repeal just got stronger

The U.S. Supreme Court just put a big smile on Barack Obama's face with some crazy mental contortions claiming there is no difference between federal and state governments so ObamaCare can continue even in the three dozen states who don't want it. What to watch for next is an overwhelming and sustained Tea Party response.

The Court's ruling is indeed 'absurd,' as Justice Scalia wrote ine his dissent. We are destroying America by pretending the rule is law is a goalpost on wheels. In Kentucky, the only reason to keep Kynect now is to waste state money the federal government will spend without substantial change to ObamaCare here. The real news going forward is the Court can't repeal economic reality, which continues to hit Kentuckians hard with a deteriorating healthcare system under federal control and the Kentucky Health Cooperative about to go out of business.

Frankfort media fiddles while Kynect burns

The largest newspaper in America just today scooped Kentucky's mainstream media on an aging story about the dire financial condition of the state's top ObamaCare health insurer.

"Until recently, the Kentucky Health Cooperative had been considered one of the more successful co-ops, with 75% of enrollees in the state's health exchange," the Wall Street Journal reported on its Opinion page. "Yet there are disturbing similarities between this cooperative and the one that failed in Iowa. Kentucky Health Cooperative's $147 million in taxpayer loans has been exhausted. To maintain a semblance of solvency, it is applying for a big premium increase ... and banking on so-called risk-protection payments from other insurers."

The abysmal job Kentucky journalists have done so far telling people about the disaster of ObamaCare and the state's ObamaCare exchange "Kynect" is in itself a major news story. The good news is that a new major newspaper will begin operating in Kentucky in a matter of days. Not a moment too soon.

NPR upset GOP hasn't caved on ObamaCare

The only reason ObamaCare is still standing at all is because President Obama has violated the law dozens of times rather than allow natural consequences to take effect. A particularly galling example of that could be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as Friday.

And if the Court rules the Obama IRS can't ignore the law and dole out subsidies in states without their own ObamaCare "exchange," Democrats and their friends at NPR are aghast at the possibility that the ensuing chaos might happen under the watch of Congressional Republicans.

Of course, that's the same chaos written into the bill by Congressional Democrats which observers have been predicting would end badly for years now. And the best is yet to come for Kentucky after the Court rules and Jack Conway gets to explain over and over why he continues to support Obama's "reform."

Jack Conway: I'll be the Bruce Jenner of corporate welfare if you make me your Governor

A key point in Jack Conway's jobs plan issued today might upset Gov. Steve Beshear by proposing to surgically remove some of Beshear's corporate welfare deals, the incessant creation of which Beshear has used as his primary form of administration activity these last eight years.

"As Governor," Conway promised, "Iʼll conduct a top-to-bottom review of every tax incentive we have in the Economic Development Cabinet. This will allow us to make certain that we have the right tools in the toolbox to bring good-paying jobs here."

Cutting off Beshear's empty corporate giveaway gestures only to replace them with whatever might be in Conway's "toolbox" sounds like trans-cronyism, crossing the boundary between Beshear's failed economic policy to Conway's. We would be far better served by shutting down the "Economic Development Cabinet" and ending the game of trying to pick winners and losers with special tax deals.

Aetna and UnitedHealthCare want to do WHAT to Kentucky health insurance consumers in 2016?!

Without federal subsidies, ObamaCare has been a disaster for health insurers and their customers. With federal subsidies, ObamaCare has been a disaster so far only for consumers. This explains why insurers Aetna and UnitedHealthCare want to expand their offerings for individual health insurance in Kentucky in 2016.

But if you expect any more details than that, forget it.

It's amazing, really, to look at the actuarial reports they have filed with the Obamacrats. A new feature, brought to you by the most transparent administration in history, provides massively redacted filings which would otherwise shed light on how these companies intend to "serve" consumers in the Commonwealth. (See Aetna and UnitedHealthCare filings.)

These rate filing documents take absurdity in redacting to a new level. One example: in the UnitedHealthCare filing, in addition to the pages of charts with literally everything blacked out, there is the following sentence about premium projections on Page 2: "Annual trend is expected to (REDACTED) in the state of Kentucky."

Precisely.