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July 19, 2012

The right move

Governor is right to begin implementing ‘Obamacare’

Anonymous The Independent The Daily Independent Thu Jul 19, 2012, 06:00 AM EDT

ASHLAND — Gov. Steve Beshear boldly pushed a political hot button Tuesday by issuing an executive order establishing the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, a component of the Affordable Health Care Act — aka Obamacare — designed to help lower-income and uninsured people find health insurance.

Not surprisingly, Republicans were quick to loudly protest the governor’s action, sending Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville — who remains Frankfort’s most powerful Republican despite his landslide loss to Beshear in the 2011 gubernatorial race — to lead the Capitol Projects and Bond Oversight Committee’s refusal to lease office space for the health benefit exchange.

Yet, despite the unpopularity, there are a number of reasons why Beshear did the right thing in establishing the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange.

First of all, AHCA is the law of the land, having been approved by Congress, signed by President Barack Obama and upheld by the United States Supreme Court. It only makes sense Kentucky begin taking the steps to implement the law. To do nothing is to ignore the dictates of the law.

To be sure, Mitt Romney and virtually every other Republican is campaigning on a promise to repeal Obamacare, but even if Romney is elected president, there is no guarantee he will have enough support in Congress to repeal the law. If Democrats remain in control of the U.S. Senate, it is almost a certainty the law will not be repealed.

It is always easier to do something than to undo it. In fact, instead of taking a “repeal or nothing” approach to Obamacare, a smarter strategy would be for Romney to campaign on amending the law. After all, Romney’s experience with “Romneycare” in Massachusetts puts him in an ideal position to work with members of both parties to amend the law.

Second, two separate studies have found Kentucky would benefit from the expansion of Medicaid mandated by AHCA. That’s because they know the state’s current Medicaid system is broken

Estimates are AHCA could add 400,000 Kentuckians to the Medicaid rolls, and with Medicaid already being a major burden on the state budget, that would seem to be a foolish thing to do. However, the federal government would pick up 100 percent of the cost for the first three years and 90 percent after that. That means the state would only be responsible for paying for 10 percent of the those added to the Medicaid rolls. That may strain the federal budget, but it is a good deal for Kentucky.

Third, most hospitals and medical providers in Kentucky support the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange. They know firsthand the current Medicaid system in Kentucky is not working, with private, for-profit companies managing the program. The status quo caused one health care provider to quip that under the current system, Medicaid has two ways of providing payments to medical providers: Seldom or never.

As former Gov. Brereton Jones often and accurately said, the problem with health care in Kentucky is not the cost but the cost shifting. Without the help of the new health care exchange, the 400,000 uninsured Kentuckians now intelligible for Medicaid will continue to be treated free of charge in hospital emergency rooms with the cost being added to the bills of patients with insurance.

For the most part, the Capitol Projects and Bind Oversight Committee’s rejection of a $300,000 lease for offices for the health care exchange was meaningless. The secretary of finance, Lori Flanery, can override the committee and approve the lease.

However, Williams’ starring role in the meeting of a committee he is not even a member of is a clear indication the GOP leadership in Frankfort believed it could make political hay at the expense of the governor. But if Republicans had taken the time to consider the issues involved, maybe enough of them would have realized the governor was right to begin implementing Obamacare — even if he disagrees with the law.

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Governor is right to begin implementing ‘Obamacare’

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