The Mountain Eagle
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Kentucky Senate hopes to kill ‘Obamacare’




More than 370,000 people have signed up for health insurance through the state’s marketplace, a project that has come to define Democrat Steve Beshear’s term as governor.

But as the governor and his staff celebrated the numbers on Tuesday — one in every 12 Kentuckians now has health insurance through Kynect — the program’s future is less certain in the state legislature.

Monday, state lawmakers approved a two year, $20.3 billion state spending plan that forbids Beshear from using any state tax dollars to pay for Kentucky’s expanded Medicaid program or the private insurance marketplace.

Republican Senate President Robert Stivers said the Republican majority in the Senate still opposes the federal Affordable Care Act.

Of particular concern, Stivers said, was the roughly $100 million the state will have to find in two years to begin paying for the state’s share of the expanded Medicaid program. (AP)



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