Obamacare enrollment tops 413,000 in Kentucky

FRANKFORT, Ky. – The Beshear administration claimed Tuesday that implementation of the Affordable Care Act in Kentucky has been an “indisputable success” with more than 413,000 enrolling for coverage before the March deadline.

Gov. Steve Beshear announced the figures in a Capitol press conference, seeking to underscore his long-held contention that the federal law will provide untold health benefits for the commonwealth despite critics who argue otherwise.

Beshear said about 75 percent of applicants in the state’s health benefit exchange, called kynect, lacked any insurance and were unable to access needed care or teetered on the edge of bankruptcy before signing up.

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He also charged that detractors of ‘Obamacare’ are sitting in their own “echo chamber,” and that “this is working — that’s the bottom line.”

“From the beginning, I knew that kynect would change the course of Kentucky’s history by helping hundreds of thousands of Kentucky families, and I’ve never wavered in my support,” he said.

Still, critics countered Tuesday that the ACA has spurred a myriad of problems for Kentuckians.

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, issued a statement saying that thousands across the state have received insurance cancellation notices due to the law and that many are facing higher costs, higher deductibles and less access to hospitals and doctors.

“The law is far from a success,” he said. “In fact, Obamacare has proved to be a failure for the millions of Americans.”

David Adams, a tea party activist who is fighting implementation of the ACA in two lawsuits, also disputed Tuesday’s numbers, arguing that enrollment questions on the kynect website prompted people to falsely claim that they lacked insurance when submitting applications.

“Even if this were the best thing since sliced bread, we have a legal process for implementing changes in state government,” he said. “We did not follow that.”

The enrollment period closed March 31, but applicants were given another week in April to sign up, and kynect processed more than 7,000 applications per day during the final three days.

According to the administration, 330,615 people qualified for Medicaid through the exchange while 82,792 purchased private health insurance. Close to 630 businesses have completed applications and are eligible to offer plans for employees.

Officials reported that the total number of signups amounts to nearly 10 percent of the state’s population, and 52 percent are under the age of 35.

One enrollee who spoke in favor of the exchange Tuesday, Beth Moore of Louisville, said she bought a policy on kynect after she became self-employed in January. That saved her from more than $30,000 in medical bills after she unexpectedly had her appendix removed in March and suffered later complications.

Without insurance, the claims would have been “catastrophic,” Moore said, adding that she has only spent $150 out of pocket so far.

State estimates indicated that about 640,000 people lacked insurance coverage prior to the ACA, but officials cautioned Tuesday that it remains unclear where that number stands today.

Audrey Tayse Haynes, secretary of the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said some of the uninsured likely bypassed the exchange and obtained coverage directly from providers. She estimated that fewer than 200,000 are now uninsured.

Meanwhile, Beshear pledged that his administration will continue working until everyone who needs insurance is able to obtain a policy.

He also argued that most people were either unaffected by the law or are happy with the results, and that critics who plan to make the law, also known as Obamacare, a major political issue in upcoming elections “aren’t going to get to first base.”

“The Affordable Care Act, come next November, is going to be looked at a lot differently than it was being looked at last November,” he said.

The next open enrollment period for kynect begins on Nov. 15 for coverage that takes effect in Jan. 15.

Reporter Mike Wynn can be reached at (502) 875-5136. Follow him on Twitter at @MikeWynn_CJ.