# KY Governor: "Nice health insurance you have there, would be a shame if something happened to it". **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 3, 2018, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239 "2018-07-03T17:15:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/61 "2018-07-05T14:17:09Z")
Recently visited Boston for the first time. My impression was that it really, really has its shit together. Maybe the answer to problems like this is massive travel advertising of places like Boston in places like Kentucky. If any place is"coastal elite", it is Boston, right? But why do they hate coastal elites so much? Because they have a functioning society? Clean streets? A big mosaic across from the commons that reads “Embrace Reason” dating back to 1830 or some such? Because it is Catholic dominated? The question we want to provoke is: if libruls are such evil America hating maniacs, how come where you live is so dramatically fucked up compared to where they live? Visit Boston and find out! ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/62 "2018-07-05T15:07:02Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > The question we want to provoke is: if libruls are such evil America hating maniacs, how come where you live is so dramatically fucked up compared to where they live? Visit Boston and find out! Maybe they don’t necessarily see the ‘fucked up-ness’ that we think we see. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/63 "2018-07-05T15:12:53Z")
Put them side by side and I think it would be hard to miss. But hey, I have been wrong about America before, lots of us have, just look at the current state of affairs. It might work… ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/64 "2018-07-05T15:34:19Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I think race plays a big part of it. The Reich wing sees any benefits as attempts by “them” to get “our” money, and for many “they” are black and “we” are white. So a lot of white Republicans are going to lose their health insurance and some of them will die. Some of those will mark up an absentee ballot in red, seal the envelope and with their dying breath mutter “that will fix those leeching blacks”. > Of course they won’t actually say ‘blacks’. > > I don’t know if there is a cure for being Republican. I don’t know how many will be forced into abject poverty and/or die before they realize “hey, we’re fucking ourselves in the ass”. The only hope is this will wake up the dormant progressives and they can vote out the monsters. I don’t really think that’s the case in Kentucky - Kentucky knows darn well it has loads of poor white people in Appalachia. Granted they have a lot of black people in places like Louisville, but Kentucky is full of small poor towns - even outside of Appalachia. I don’t think the primary driver is race. I think the primary driver is class and the idea that somehow, the poor are a burden to the rest of us - especially the combination of poor and sick, and the faster they die, the less of a drain they will be on society. Its one of the reasons we are only paying lip service to the opioid epidemic. We could speed it up and call it “Operation Compassionate Death” but that’s been used. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/65 "2018-07-05T15:35:27Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > I would plan to get the 80 hours of work/volunteering in well before the end of the month so that I would always have time to fit in some more volunteer work if I was in danger of falling short. > > I’m not saying that I support the overall policy, just explaining how at least one part of it can be dealt with. Which is going to be darn hard to do if you have responsibilities to children or aging parents. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/66 "2018-07-05T15:52:35Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Which is going to be darn hard to do if you have responsibilities to children or aging parents. Well, luckily there is an exemption for one primary caregiver per family. So this isn’t a problem. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/67 "2018-07-05T16:34:16Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Sorry, you are not going to convince me that an able-bodied person doing 80 hours a month of work or work activity is some onerous burden that nobody in our country should have to suffer. And you’re not going to convince me (us?) that providing an otherwise-qualified able-bodied person health care without demanding they perform 80 hours a month of approved and appropriately-documented work or work activity with zero tolerance for failure is some onerous burden on society. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/68 "2018-07-05T16:40:26Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Well, luckily there is an exemption for one primary caregiver per family. So this isn’t a problem. I’d say it’s at the very least the problem of assuming that there isn’t merely one primary caregiver; there is one sole caregiver. The very notion of two or more people splitting both the earning and the caregiving has never occurred to Bevin. Fuck that shit. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/69 "2018-07-05T16:47:29Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I don’t really think that’s the case in Kentucky - Kentucky knows darn well it has loads of poor white people in Appalachia. Granted they have a lot of black people in places like Louisville, but Kentucky is full of small poor towns - even outside of Appalachia. > > I don’t think the primary driver is race. I think the primary driver is class and the idea that somehow, the poor are a burden to the rest of us - especially the combination of poor and sick, and the faster they die, the less of a drain they will be on society. Its one of the reasons we are only paying lip service to the opioid epidemic. > > We could speed it up and call it “Operation Compassionate Death” but that’s been used. What makes it more difficult to understand is that these areas (Appalachia and the upper Midwest) are ground zero for the opioid epidemic, yet these same areas are the ones becoming more conservative. Yes, there are poor people, including poor blacks, in places like Boston, New York, Portland, and Seattle, but one of the reasons these so called “coastal elites” are doing better overall than the people in Appalachia and the upper Midwest is because those places have a stronger social safety net. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/70 "2018-07-05T17:01:39Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > And you’re not going to convince me (us?) that providing an otherwise-qualified able-bodied person health care without demanding they perform 80 hours a month of approved and appropriately-documented work or work activity with zero tolerance for failure is some onerous burden on society. I guess we will both remain unconvinced then. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/71 "2018-07-05T17:40:59Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > What makes it more difficult to understand is that these areas (Appalachia and the upper Midwest) are ground zero for the opioid epidemic, yet these same areas are the ones becoming more conservative. Yes, there are poor people, including poor blacks, in places like Boston, New York, Portland, and Seattle, but one of the reasons these so called “coastal elites” are doing better overall than the people in Appalachia and the upper Midwest is because those places have a stronger social safety net. I suspect your arrow of causality goes the other way. They have a stronger social safety net (and lets be clear - no state in the U.S. has a strong social safety net) because they can afford to have one. And they can afford to have one for a lot of reasons - their population is more educated. They’ve been able to attract and retain businesses that require that education. They aren’t dependent on consumable resources (coal, iron) and the factory jobs disappeared from the North, Northeast and West (except for Michigan) starting immediately after WWII - they lost their jobs to the lower wage South, just like the South has been losing them overseas and to automation - they are a generation ahead in that particular cycle. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/72 "2018-07-05T18:11:26Z")
I wonder why this didn’t occur to me before, but how does the work requirement, particularly \*volunteer \*work, help make up the shortfall? ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/73 "2018-07-05T18:23:51Z")
Particularly galling, in my opinion, is that no one received notice of the cancellation, prompting dentists and other providers to have to turn away patients. Including children, who were supposed to be unaffected by the cancellation. > **[Kids wrongly denied care under Bevin's Medicaid cuts, dentists say](https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2018/07/03/bevin-medicaid-cuts-wrongly-applied-kids-kentucky-dentists-say/755280002/)** > > Kentucky children, pregnant women and disabled adults are being denied dental care after wrongly losing benefits under Gov. Bevin's Medicaid cuts ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/74 "2018-07-05T18:42:15Z")
Does anybody know what processes are in place in KY to validate, record, and credit hours volunteered? Is there a clearinghouse of sorts that would put people seeking to meet their requirements together with people who are in need of volunteers and eligible to sign off on the work hours as having been performed? Is this administrative function paid for by the people seeking to maintain eligibility, or by the state? If by the state, is it carried out by a state office (staffed with workers on the public payroll), or by a contracted private agency? ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/75 "2018-07-05T18:52:44Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Does anybody know what processes are in place in KY to validate, record, and credit hours volunteered? Is there a clearinghouse of sorts that would put people seeking to meet their requirements together with people who are in need of volunteers and eligible to sign off on the work hours as having been performed? > > Is this administrative function paid for by the people seeking to maintain eligibility, or by the state? If by the state, is it carried out by a state office (staffed with workers on the public payroll), or by a contracted private agency? Looks like the court blocked the requirement anyway, so it’s a moot point. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/76 "2018-07-05T19:04:00Z")
It would still be interesting to learn if Bevin had anything in mind for how to handle those details. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/77 "2018-07-05T19:12:12Z")
[This Page](https://kentuckyhealth.ky.gov/Parts/Pages/Community-Engagement.aspx) seems to have a lot of information about that. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/78 "2018-07-05T19:30:34Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > And that’s still factually incorrect, because not everyone in the state voted for this person. And a lot of people who did probably don’t need Medicaid, so they are not the ones who are going to be hurt. Or they have jobs, and won’t be hurt. Maybe some people who would actually be harmed by this voted for him, but you don’t know that. They may have voted against him, or, due to their disability, been unable to vote–especially given the efforts to exclude people from voting. (I know it took some doing on my part to find out how to vote from home–if I’d been older and not known how to Google, I’d be sunk.) > > If you want to limit your ire to the people who would be hurt who voted for this guy, I can see it. But there are a lot more being affected than these guys. > > Hell, if I lived in Kentucky, you could be talking about me. Only thing losing my healthcare would mean is that they’d have one less person voting Democrat in a few years, since I would no longer be around. Believe me, I definitely hear you. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/79 "2018-07-05T19:34:21Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > I wonder why this didn’t occur to me before, but how does the work requirement, particularly \*volunteer \*work, help make up the shortfall? Cheap labor, and FREE labor. Every corporate shill’s wet dream. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2018, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239/80 "2018-07-05T19:36:08Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > I suspect your arrow of causality goes the other way. They have a stronger social safety net (and lets be clear - no state in the U.S. has a strong social safety net) because they can afford to have one. . Spain had a stronger social safety net in 1959 than the US has right now. Were we a rich country? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ky-governor-nice-health-insurance-you-have-there-would-be-a-shame-if-something-happened-to-it/817239.md?page=5)