Health News
- Beshear, In D.c., Speaks Bluntly About State's Health Issues And 'rank Politics' That Keeps Some States From Expanding Medicaid
Beshear at the Brookings InsttitutionBy Al Cross Kentucky Health News An interesting thing sometimes happens to governors when they travel to Washington; they speak a little more freely than they do in their states, and that appeared to be the case when...
- Beshear Says That Even If Republicans Take Over, They Won't Be Willing Or Able To Reverse His Medicaid Expansion
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear may be succeeded by a Republican next year, and the state legislature may even sooner be controlled by Republicans who have objected to his expansion of Medicaid, but he says they won't...
- Republicans Wait For Elections And Chance To Roll Back Medicaid Expansion; Few Kentucky Democrats Defend Obamacare
Though thousands of their constituents have benefited from it, Republican state legislators say they are planning to roll back Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear's expansion of Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act if they take...
- Beshear Says Other Governors Will Follow His Lead On Medicaid
Associated Press file photoGov. Steve Beshear says states that have not expanded the Medicaid program under the federal health-reform law, as he did, will do so in the next few years because their voters will demand it. ?I believe the pressure will be...
- Obamacare Is Unpopular In Nine Swing States, But Not When The Law Is Described Without That Label
Party labels affect what rural voters think about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to the latest National Rural Assembly and Center for Rural Strategies poll of rural voters in nine swing states in the presidential election, reports Bill...
Health News
Beshear says Medicaid plan will transform Ky. in a generation; acknowledges it was easier because he wouldn't face voters
In a generation, Kentucky will be a very different state because the federal health-reform law and expansion of Medicaid has made health insurance available to all residents of the state, Gov. Steve Beshear told Los Angeles Times political reporter Mark Z. Barabak for a story the paper published on Thanksgiving Day. And he acknowledged that his Medicaid decision was easier because he can't seek re-election.
"I knew if I was going to make a huge difference in the health status of Kentucky, it was going to take some kind of transformational tool to do that, and that's what the Affordable Care Act is for me," Beshear told Barabak. "I think we've started something here that a generation from now you'll see a very different Kentucky than what you see today."
Beshear "conceded, with a small smile, that it was easier knowing he would never face voters again," Barabak writes. "Embracing Obamacare is not without political risk. Undaunted by the early success in Kentucky, Republicans plan to make the controversial program a major issue in 2014, when the GOP will be vying to take control of the state House for the first time in close to a century."
Politics aside, "The need for care in this pretty but hard-pressed state is unarguable," Barabak writes. "Kentucky leads the nation in cancer deaths and preventable hospitalizations and suffers some of the highest rates of diabetes, cardiovascular illness and premature death." But he says "Kentuckians may feel understandably whiplashed" because the state's Republican U.S. senators firmly oppose "Obamacare." (Read more)
"I knew if I was going to make a huge difference in the health status of Kentucky, it was going to take some kind of transformational tool to do that, and that's what the Affordable Care Act is for me," Beshear told Barabak. "I think we've started something here that a generation from now you'll see a very different Kentucky than what you see today."
Beshear "conceded, with a small smile, that it was easier knowing he would never face voters again," Barabak writes. "Embracing Obamacare is not without political risk. Undaunted by the early success in Kentucky, Republicans plan to make the controversial program a major issue in 2014, when the GOP will be vying to take control of the state House for the first time in close to a century."
- Beshear, In D.c., Speaks Bluntly About State's Health Issues And 'rank Politics' That Keeps Some States From Expanding Medicaid
Beshear at the Brookings InsttitutionBy Al Cross Kentucky Health News An interesting thing sometimes happens to governors when they travel to Washington; they speak a little more freely than they do in their states, and that appeared to be the case when...
- Beshear Says That Even If Republicans Take Over, They Won't Be Willing Or Able To Reverse His Medicaid Expansion
By Al Cross Kentucky Health News Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear may be succeeded by a Republican next year, and the state legislature may even sooner be controlled by Republicans who have objected to his expansion of Medicaid, but he says they won't...
- Republicans Wait For Elections And Chance To Roll Back Medicaid Expansion; Few Kentucky Democrats Defend Obamacare
Though thousands of their constituents have benefited from it, Republican state legislators say they are planning to roll back Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear's expansion of Medicaid under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act if they take...
- Beshear Says Other Governors Will Follow His Lead On Medicaid
Associated Press file photoGov. Steve Beshear says states that have not expanded the Medicaid program under the federal health-reform law, as he did, will do so in the next few years because their voters will demand it. ?I believe the pressure will be...
- Obamacare Is Unpopular In Nine Swing States, But Not When The Law Is Described Without That Label
Party labels affect what rural voters think about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to the latest National Rural Assembly and Center for Rural Strategies poll of rural voters in nine swing states in the presidential election, reports Bill...