Kentucky Republicans are questioning the need for Kentucky health insurance exchange, known as Kynect, in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling keeping federal subsidies in place for plans purchased through both state or federal exchanges.
"While Kynect when it was rolled out worked better than the federal exchanges, obviously the glitches for the federal exchanges have been worked out, and so I guess my question at this point is whether there’s really a need for the state to run a duplicative system," State Sen. Ralph Alvarado asked during a meeting of the Interim Joint Health and Welfare Committee covered by cn|2 Wednesday.
In response, Cabinet for Health and Family Services executive director Beth Jurek said Kynect is funded through a one percent fee on insurers on the marketplace and still fares better than the federal version, HealthCare.gov. In addition, she said the state might have to foot the bill for shutting down Kynect and integrating Kentucky into the federal system.
"To interface with the federal exchange is going to require that you build the interfaces, and that’s going to cost in the millions of dollars to do," she said.
The ultimate fate of Kynect could depend on the outcome of this year’s gubernatorial election – with Democratic nominee Jack Conway indicating he would maintain the online marketplace and GOP contender Matt Bevin pledging to close it down.
