A Kentucky lawmaker thinks if Kentucky’s online health exchange is good enough for citizens, it should be good enough for the state’s leaders.
Representative Robert Benvenuti has pre-filed a bill for the 2014 legislative session that requires Governor Steve Beshear, members of his cabinet, and all 138 state lawmakers to obtain health coverage through the exchange or purchase insurance on their own.
"The initial feedback from the folks I care about, the citizens of the commonwealth, has been very positive. They think this is only right, that the folks that make the rules live by the rules they make," stated Benvenuti. "We've heard a great deal from the governor's office and from Democrats in the General Asssembly that the exchange is a wonderful opportunity for Kentuckians, and yet the Kentuckians I talk to strongly disagree."
Benvenuti, a Lexington Republican, points to the estimated 280,000 Kentuckians that will lose their current insurance plans because they don’t comply with mandates of the federal health care law.
Governor Beshear has dismissed naysayers, saying the exchange is allowing the uninsured to get coverage that, in the long run, will reduce medical costs and create a healthier population.
Kentucky’s exchange has been touted as a national model, and the state says about 1,000 people per day are enrolling in coverage.
