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Through the end of February, Kentucky’s health insurance marketplace, Kynect, has enrolled over 265,000 people in healthcare coverage since open enrollment started in October. In the month of February alone, 70,000 people signed up for a new healthcare plan. This has to be disappointing news for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who is running for reelection in November and is using the ACA as a major campaign issue.
Joe Sonka, the news editor for LEO Weekly, was on top of this news on Friday and sent out the following tweets.
More breaking news: Nearly 265,000 Kentuckians are now enrolled in new healthcare coverage through @kynectky. #ACA
— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) February 28, 2014
In February alone, nearly 70,000 Kentuckians signed up for health insurance on @kynectky, or about 2,400 each day this month. #ACA
— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) February 28, 2014
Approximately 48 percent of all @kynectky enrollees are under the age of 35. #ACA
— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) February 28, 2014
Under @kynectky so far, 210,545 have qualified for Medicaid coverage and 54,369 have purchased private insurance. #ACA
— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) February 28, 2014
308,000 Kentuckians were eligible under Medicaid expansion. Over 2/3 that number have already signed up for it through @kynectky. #ACA
— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) February 28, 2014
In its earliest days, @kynectky was singing up 1,000 enrollees a day. This month it signed up 2,400 a day. #ACA#Acceleration
— Joe Sonka (@joesonka) February 28, 2014
What has happened in Kentucky is absolutely amazing and a testament to the dedication of Democratic Governor Steve Beshear. Instead of playing to the largely conservative population of his state, he decided to get in front of other Red states, who planned on doing nothing, and work with how the law was intended. He wanted to make affordable health care available to the citizens of Kentucky because he knew many needed it. So he made sure the insurance exchange would be ready and operational on October 1st, 2013, when open enrollment began under the ACA.
As Sonka tweeted out, the majority of people eligible for Medicaid under the ACA have no received coverage. Nearly half of all enrollees in Kentucky are 35 or younger. For Kentuckians, Obamacare is a complete and total success. Instead of doing nothing and letting his state’s residents have to rely on the federal marketplace, like the state’s Republicans wanted him to do, Beshear made the law work as it was meant to and now has nearly 300,000 people in his state covered, many for the first time in their lives.
With Obamacare a rousing success in Kentucky, it will be difficult for McConnell to make it an issue to successfully campaign against. However, McConnell has put all his eggs in that basket and he is going to have to carry though with it. McConnell has a serious Democratic challenger in Alison Grimes. Polls have shown it as either a dead heat or Grimes in the lead. That was all before Grimes unleashed the Big Dog and had Bill Clinton go out and campaign for her.
The ACA is the law of the land. It isn’t going anywhere. Millions and millions of people across the country are signing up and getting affordable health care. Republicans themselves acknowledge that they have no viable replacement for the ACA, four years after it was passed. It is time for the GOP to move on. If they continue to make Obamacare a key election issue in this year’s mid-terms and 2016, it will be a loser for them. The American people have come to accept the health care law. Maybe its time for Republicans to come to grips with it.
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
