What happened to Kentucky governor Matt Bevin's Obamacare campaign promise?

I remember Matt Bevin. I remember Matt Bevin when he was running in a Senate primary against Mitch McConnell. Mark Levin, who always wanted to encourage McConnell to embrace a private-sector career, had Bevin on his show from time to time. Bevin wasn't particularly smooth or articulate, but he seemed sincere, at least, in his conservatism. Flash forward to 2016. Bevin, running again, this time for governor of Kentucky, wins, improbably. He replaced Democrat Governor Steve Beshear, who illegally expanded Medicaid when Obamacare was passed. I say illegally because Beshear needed an act of the Kentucky legislature to expand Medicaid, but like Obama, he wasn't one to be troubled by silly constitutional (in this case, state constitutional) requirements. So he issued an executive order expanding it.

Bevin, running for governor, promised to reverse this. Now Bevin has announced that he will not, in fact, keep his campaign promise. Instead, he is going to shut down Kentucky's Obamacare exchange. That means people signing up for Obamacare will have to do so on the federal website. Nothing else will change. It's a purely symbolic act. Substantively, Bevin refuses to curtail Medicaid. Democrats like to say that expanding Medicaid costs states nothing and that states are throwing away free money, because the federal government picks up all the costs. That is true today. But in a few years, states will be responsible for paying most or all of the costs, and these enormous costs will saddle taxpayers with a large financial burden. But Bevin refuses to reverse the Medicaid expansion. Instead, he promises new regulations to limit the expansion of Medicaid. Bevin is behaving like every other Republican; when running, promise to cut spending; refuse to cut a single program Democrats created; and claim you are a champion by reducing the rate of spending increasing (whether it is true or not). Bevin could have told taxpayers the truth about the future costs. He could have kept his campaign promise. He could have explained that the Medicaid expansion was illegal. He did none of these things. So far, I don't see any difference between him, Rand Paul, or Mitch McConnell. This article was written by Ed Straker, senior writer of NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.