Conservative Kentucky accepts new health care law, makes it work
Source: Anniston Star
To health policy experts, Alabama and Kentucky look like near twins — Southern states with some of the highest rates of poverty, and some of the worst health outcomes, in the nation. But their approaches to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, couldn't be more different.
In Kentucky, where Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear has embraced health care reform, the state health care exchange has been praised as a model of how health care reform should work.
By early November, about 50,000 applications for insurance had been filed through the program, one of the best compliance rates in the nation, according to federal numbers. Kentucky is now reporting 60,000 people signed up for either Medicaid or private insurance, though it's not clear how those numbers compare to early December numbers states with a federal exchange.
In Alabama, Republican Gov. Robert Bentley and other state officials have rejected both the Medicaid expansion and the option of creating a state health insurance exchange. Policy cancellations and higher rates from the state's biggest insurer have dominated the headlines. Only about 10,000 applications for insurance through the program were filed by early November — and only 642 people had bought insurance through the plan.
Read more: http://www.thepiedmontjournal.com/view/full_story/24186011/article-Conservative-Kentucky-accepts-new-health-care-law--makes-it-work-?instance=news_secondary
Interesting article in an Alabama newspaper contrasting Alabama's recent experience with ACA with Kentucky. One notable quote: "The only real difference is that most of your uninsured folks are black, and most of our uninsured folks are white," he said. "We have the Appalachians, you have the Black Belt."
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congestive heart failure, asthma, COPD, coronary artery disease, morbid obesity, tobacco addiction, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc.
Too fucking bad for you, Alabama. You could have had all of that... 
hate Americans SO much that they do almost anything possible, to deny them getting care or better care.
Totally Un-American.
Repubbies just hate it when things are working out for Americans and America.
