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Kynect Opens Retail Store In Fayette Mall

Josh James
/
WUKY

It may not be the first place that comes to mind when one thinks about health insurance, but the state has opened a Kynect store inside Fayette Mall.

Situated across from Jamba Juice and Hot Topic, the Kynect store looks like any other shop, but the product for sale is unlike anything else on offer in Fayette Mall. The hope is to turn the location into a health insurance portal for an area that so far hasn’t attracted the kind of signup numbers seen in Eastern Kentucky counties.

"Other states have done this last year and they found it to be successful," Governor Steve Beshear says. "We picked Lexington and Fayette Mall because last year the number of enrollees in this area were lower than they were in a lot of other parts of the state and so we thought that this retail outlet would pick those numbers up and I think it will."

And with the second open enrollment starting this Saturday, officials are aiming to attract the harder-to-reach crowd in their 20s and 30s, often called the “young invincibles.”  

The goal, Beshear says, is to sign up several thousand more people this time around – even as Republicans worry aloud about the cost of adding more Kentuckians to the Medicaid rolls.

Josh James fell in love with college radio at Western Kentucky University's student station, New Rock 92 (now Revolution 91.7). After working as a DJ and program director, he knew he wanted to come home to Lexington and try his hand in public radio.
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