“Obamacare has failed the people of Kentucky it has failed the people of America and Obamacare must go,” ranted Mike Pence to a select audience of business owners and Republican stalwarts.
Only 6 percent of Kentuckians lacked health insurance in 2015, a drop of 8.3 percentage points since 2013, according to fresh data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The net gain of 355,000 insured people put Kentucky ahead of most other states.
The Census Bureau, which released nationwide survey data on insurance coverage Tuesday, said the largest increases in insurance coverage are in the 32 states, including Kentucky, that expanded Medicaid to the working poor under the federal Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article101608197.html#storylink=cpy
“Obamacare is an attack on conservative values”1 Pence continued. “Obamacare has enabled five hundred thousand Kentuckians to go to doctors, clinics and hospitals for health care. This is making Kentuckians dependent on science and medicine. It is turning them away from faith. I promise to end this nightmare of people turning to science, medicine, reason and progress. We must return to the values that have made Appalachia the shining example of the success of conservative ideas”.2
A Kentucky church's insistence on using venomous snakes in Sunday sermons — despite two fatal bites since 1995 — has local authorities trying to find a balance between public safety and religious freedom.
Pastor Jamie Coots, a third-generation snake handler, died on Feb. 15 after being bitten by a timber rattlesnake at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name church in Middlesboro, Ky. The 42-year-old preacher refused medical attention and later died at his home, some 19 years after a woman died at the same church from the bite of a 4-foot timber rattlesnake. But despite a 1942 state law explicitly banning the use of “any kind of reptile” during religious services, local officials told FoxNews.com they don't plan to do anything about the serpents.
“Pursuant to his religious beliefs, Jamie Coots was voluntarily handling a poisonous snake,” Bell County Attorney Neil Ward wrote in an email. “No one had a legal duty or right to make Coots seek treatment. I am not aware of any investigation regarding this sad loss.” www.foxnews.com/...
Kentucky’s version of Obamacare, KYNECT, was so successful at bringing health care to Kentucky's uninsured that Republicans had to kill it. Desperately poor white people living in the small towns and poverty pockets of Appalachia were getting help from the government. If this was allowed to continue they might see that Democrats are on their side and Republicans are preying on them, not praying for them.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to mark the passing of Kynect.ky.gov, Kentucky’s health insurance exchange. Gov. Matt Bevin killed it, not because it wasn’t working, but because it was working too well.
Former Gov. Steve Beshear created Kynect three years ago to help Kentuckians buy individual health insurance policies from companies under the Affordable Care Act or, if their incomes were low, enroll in Medicaid, which he expanded under the law.
Gov. Matt Bevin says Kynect was a costly and unnecessary duplication of the federal health care exchange. Kynect has been widely praised for making Kentucky a national leader in closing the insurance gap.
More than 355,000 Kentuckians who didn’t have insurance before reform do now. Kentucky’s uninsured rate has fallen from
20.4 percent to
6 percent.
Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/tom-eblen/article111795887.html#storylink=cpy
1. snark begins here.
2. snark ends here.