ASHLAND —
The Republican-controlled state Senate is on the verge of kicking that proverbial gift horse in the mouth and denying Medicare coverage to an estimated 181,000 low-income Kentuckians.
But Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said the two bills the Senate approved Friday have little or nothing to do with the expansion of Medicare. Instead, their only intent is to maintain legislative oversight over what he called “a huge policy decision.”
Nevertheless, Sen. Walter “Doc” Blevins, D-Morehead, is right when he called the two bills a vote “against children and people who need this service.”
The Affordable Health Care Act — a.k.a “Obamacare” — makes an offer that Kentucky would be foolish to refuse. The law expands Medicare to include those who earn up to 150 percent of the federal poverty level and can’t afford private insurance or do not have it available through their employers. With Medicare gushing red ink in Kentucky, it may sound foolish and fiscally irresponsible to expand the program, but under Obamacare, the federal government would pay 100 percent of the cost of the Medicare expansion for the first three years and 90 percent after that.
However, in its landmark ruling upholding the Affordable Health Care Act, the U.S. Supreme Court gave individual states the right to opt out of some of its provisions. That’s what Kentucky is on the verge of doing, thanks to the political shenanigans of Republicans who control the Senate and want to do everything they can to demonstrate their opposition to Obamacare, even if it means denying health care to thousands of low-income Kentuckians, including scores of children.
The two bills that were approved by the Senate Friday along party-line votes were sponsored by Sen. Julie Denton, R-Louisville. One would require legislative approval before Beshear can expand Medicaid to cover working poor families who can’t afford private insurance.
Beshear has used his executive powers to sign Kentucky up for the Medicare expansion, contending he can do so because the expansion does not involve the expenditure of state funds for another three years.
Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, said the bills have nothing to do with the general Republican opposition to the health care law but rather intended to maintain legislative oversight over what he called “a huge policy decision.”
The other bill would require legislative approval to establish a state operated health benefit exchange, essentially an online market where individuals and companies could shop for the most affordable private health insurance. That, too, is a component of Obamacare.
If a state declines to operate its own exchange, the federal government will do it. Beshear has already begun setting up the exchange in Kentucky, using federal grants to pay for it. He has said existing insurance taxes will provide operational funding after the exchange is up and going.
In an ideal world, the governor should get legislative approval before expanding Medicare or setting up the health benefit exchange in Kentucky. But with government so divided in Frankfort along party lines, this is not an ideal time. The Senate has given no indication that it is willing to do anything to implement Obamacare in Kentucky. But the re-election of Obama guaranteed that the law is here to stay, and Kentucky would be foolish to not take advantage of its provisions that clearly benefit the state and its residents.
One of those provisions is the expansion of Medicare. In a poll conducted for the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network, 63 percent of Kentuckians said the state should agree to expand Medicare under the Affordable Health Care Act. Only 23 percent opposed the expansion.
Neither of the Senate bills have any chance of being approved by the Democratic-controlled House. By the same token House-approved bills on this subject will not be approved by the Senate.
Unless common sense and good government prevails over partisan politics, the 2013 General Assembly will end without legislative approval of the Medicaid expansion. That would mean that more than 180,000 Kentuckians who can least afford to pay for health care will be denied Medicaid coverage that would have cost the state nothing for at least three years. If that happens, shame on legislators.
Editorials
Rejecting deal
Legislators close to kicking a gift horse in the mouth
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Funding Rupp
The use of $2.5 million in coal severance tax revenue to help pay for renovations at Rupp Arena in Lexington has drawn the ire of some county leaders in the eastern Kentucky coalfields.
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Modest increase
Full-time students at Ashland Community and Technical College will be paying an average of $60 more in tuition this fall under a modest 2.86 percent increase approved Friday by the Kentucky Community and Technical College System Board of Regents.
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The next step
The people — or at least those who took the time to vote in Tuesday’s special election — have spoken. The issue of alcohol sales in Grayson has ben settled for at least the next three years.
In an outcome that surprised many, Grayson voters rather convincingly for the legal sale of alcohol in the city for the first time since 1937. With 511 voters answering in the affirmative to the question, “Are you in favor of alcoholic beverages in Grayson, Ky.?” as opposed to 393 voting “no,” the results were not even close. The measure passed in all seven of the city’s precincts. -
Top Father
In the Spade family, the vote was unanimous. Both 12-year-old Emma Spade, who will be a seventh-grader at Verity Middle School this fall, and Emma’s 11-year-old brother Will, who attends Hagar Elementary, both thought so highly of their dad — Ponderosa Elementary School principal Matt Spade — that they both wrote essays nominating him for the Ashland Breakfast Kiwanis Club’s annual Father of the Year award, presented annually on the Tuesday before Father’s Day.
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An unselfish act
Even before the start of the recent Boyd County Health Department’s Bicycle Rodeo, Gavin Eckard said that if he won one of the two bicycle given away at the event, he would give his new bike to someone who needed it more than he did.
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Crop still banned
When their colleagues in the U.S. Senate rejected their efforts to legalize industrial hemp production as part of the Senate farm bill, Kentucky’s two Republican senators — Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and freshman Rand Paul — reacted to the Senate refusal to include their hemp proposal in the bill by saying they would oppose the comprehensive farm bill.
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It's not the breed
Lorie Akers wants the Ashland City Commissioner to adopt an ordinance banning pit bulls in the city. Since she claimed her Chihuahua Paco was attacked and killed by a neighbor’s pit bull while the little dog was chained in the back yard, it is understandable that Akers is worried that her children and other pets could be endangered by pit bulls.
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A necessary evil
The shifting of the tax burden that began when the Ashland Board of City Commissioners first adopted the payroll tax in the 1990s continues as the mayor and four elected commissioners prepare to increase the payroll tax from 1.5 to 2 percent while at the same time decreasing property taxes.
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No time to read
The complaints of two leading legislators about a provision added to a complex pension reform bill approved by the 3013 Kentucky General Assembly points hat can happen when legislative leaders wait until the final days or even hour of a legislative session to bring major pieces of legislation. In so doing, they force legislators to vote on bills they have not even had time to read.
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To the polls
On Tuesday, residents of Grayson will discover if attitudes about the sale of alcohol in the city have changed in the past 42 years. It is an important question, and we encourage registered voters to take the time to go to the polls Tuesday.
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