Monday GOP gubernatorial contender and Agriculture Commissioner James Comer detailed his healthcare recommendations for Kentucky, the first pillar of a five-point plan to be released in the coming weeks.
While Comer wants to see tort reform, measures insuring doctors and hospitals are paid for services, and an overhaul of what he calls Kentucky’s “healthcare bureaucracy,” the issue on the front burner for the gubernatorial hopeful is Medicaid – specifically the high number of recipients in the Commonwealth. Comer says keeping a fourth of Kentuckians enrolled is unsustainable and the state must look for ways to cut costs.
"No other state has as high a percentage of our population on Medicaid as Kentucky does, so our eligibility requirements for Medicaid are too lenient," he says. "We're going to have re-enrollment periods and we're going to do everything we can to make sure that there aren't any able-bodied Kentuckians receiving Medicaid benefits."
Given the chance, Comer would like to jettison the Kynect model that has won Gov. Steve Beshear praise from the White House and move forward with initiatives he says will increase competition among health insurance providers and open up more options for consumers.
About 400,000 Kentuckians have enrolled for insurance through Kynect, with the lion’s share qualifying for Medicaid. The bills have so far landed on the federal government, but beginning in 2017 the state will have to shoulder a portion of the cost.
Comer plans to release details on his plans for education, government accountability, growing the middle class, and investments in the state’s future later in the campaign. See an outline of the full plan here.
