As a physician who witnessed the negative effects of Obamacare first-hand, I became frustrated watching former Governor Steve Beshear, D-Ky., use a national platform to push the falsehood that Obamacare has been successful in Kentucky. Frankly, I see things much better than I hear them. Kentucky’s healthcare reality is much different than Beshear’s imaginative narrative.
Beshear spoke about the success of Kynect. It’s true that Kynect had a better rollout than healthcare.gov, but based on how much taxpayer money was spent developing the duplicative system, it should have. Healthcare.gov cost $850 million to build and implement, and enrolled about 9 million people in qualified health plans—less than $100 per enrollee. Kynect, on the other hand, cost about $300 million to build and implement, and enrolled about 85,000 people in qualified health plans—a cost of more than $3,500 per enrollee! Kentucky spent nearly $3,400 more per enrollee for a duplicative website, a tremendous waste of taxpayer resources. Current Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, a Republican, was smart to shutter this expensive state run system.
