None.”Ī year and a campaign later, Bevin has not given up on the crusade. Matt will not vote for any spending bills that fund Obamacare. “Washington politicians say they oppose Obamacare, but they continue to vote for spending bills that fund it,” Bevin wrote on his campaign website at the time. Calling the law “already a disaster,” the manufacturing millionaire vowed to use any means necessary to stop the law, even if it meant voting for a government shutdown.
Obamacare success story full#
Mitch McConnell, the current Republican leader.Īmong Bevin’s top priorities was a full repeal of Obamacare. If Bevin’s name sounds familiar, it’s probably because last year he mounted a primary challenge to Kentucky Sen. So the questions are surely worth asking - who is Matt Bevin? And what would happen to Kentucky’s health care system if he won? A Long-Time Obamacare Hater “There’s over 300,000, and Matt Bevin is just going to take it from every single one of them - just because he doesn’t like the fact that President Obama was the one that got it passed.”ĭespite Kynect’s popularity and growing support among conservatives for the system, the most recent polls show Bevin locked in a tight race with current Attorney General Jack Conway (D), who has indicated he would continue the state’s current health care regime. One of those officials was Beshear himself, who accused Bevin of playing politics with the hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians who now have insurance for the first time. It’s a prospect that worries many state-based health experts, business groups, and public officials who spoke to ThinkProgress about the upcoming election and the state of Kentucky’s health care system. The Tea Party-backed candidate vows he’ll do away with both the successful state exchange and the Medicaid expansion that has helped hundreds of thousands get affordable health care - moves that the governor could likely make unilaterally. There’s over 300,000, and Matt Bevin is just going to take it from every single one of them.īut with Beshear term-limited, Bevin, the GOP nominee, has made it clear he wants to reverse course. And Helen Spalding, who lost her job and benefits after a serious car accident, was also able to purchase insurance. “It has really empowered me,” said Lynn Young, a Louisville resident who got insured despite her recent unemployment. “Thank God for Kynect,” said Eddie Alvis, who after years of struggling financially was able to get health insurance, and discovered he had severe asthma. In testimonials provided to ThinkProgress by Kentucky Voices for Health, a coalition of health advocacy groups, many Kentuckians agreed.
Governing fêted Kentucky as “one of the few states that got everything right.” According to a Gallup poll, by the first half of 2015, Kentucky’s uninsured rate had fallen from 20.4 percent in 2013 to just 9 percent, the second largest drop of any state. Steve Beshear (D) and overseen by Governing magazine’s 2014 Public Official of the Year Carrie Banahan, helped get 521,000 Kentuckians insurance coverage in the first year alone. Unlike most southern states, Kentucky opted to both set up its own state exchange (the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange, commonly known as “Kynect”) and to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
As the troubled roll out of the national health care exchange website was ruthlessly mocked by late night television, Fortune praised “ one health exchange success story”: Kentucky’s new state-level marketplace. The nation’s most unlikely Obamacare success story - a state system that has provided more than 500,000 Kentuckians with affordable health insurance - might well be ransacked by a Tea Party candidate named Matt Bevin.įrom the earliest days, Kentucky’s efforts to implement Obamacare have earned national acclaim. Though it has been largely ignored by national media and pollsters, Kentucky’s November gubernatorial election could mean striking changes for the Bluegrass State.
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