Deborah Yetter

Louisville Courier Journal

Seeking to preserve Kentucky's "dramatic success" in expanding health care coverage to more than half a million Kentuckians, former Gov. Steve Beshear today is launching a statewide campaign asking public support for what's considered one of his major accomplishments in office.

Beshear scheduled news conferences in Louisville and Lexington on Thursday to kick off the campaign outlined in a website unveiled Thursday morning, Savekyhealthcare.org.

The campaign comes as Beshear's successor, Gov. Matt Bevin, has announced plans to dismantle Kentucky's nationally known health insurance exchange and restructure the Medicaid expansion Beshear enacted by executive order under the Affordable Care Act.

Beshear, on the website, calls on Kentucky to support the changes that have added health coverage to more than 500,000 people and helped Kentucky achieve the sharpest drop of uninsured residents in the nation.

The campaign, led by Beshear, includes a board of with some well-known public figures including his wife, Jane Beshear, Other board members include Audrey Tayse Haynes, Beshear's former secretary of Health and Family Services, Crit Luallen, Beshear's former lieutenant governor and Ben Richmond, retired president of the Louisville Urban League.

The board also includes national political strategist Bill Hyers, who, according to his biographical information, has a history of taking on and helping win uphill political campaigns.

The website described the campaign this way:

"Save Kentucky Healthcare, an effort led by former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, is committed to continuing Kentucky’s dramatic success in expanding health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Despite insuring half a million Kentuckians for the first time, partisan politics threatens to reverse Kentucky’s gains by dismantling the state’s model health exchange.

"Please support Governor Beshear’s ongoing vision to make affordable, quality health care available to every Kentuckian, from Paducah to Pikeville and in every community in between. If critics of the Affordable Care Act can turn back the clock in Kentucky, the state with the most successful health insurance expansion in the nation, they can do it almost anywhere. We must not allow that to happen."

The website also includes an online petition, urging the public "to let Matt Bevin know you want smart, sensible healthcare policy in the state of Kentucky."

The news conferences will be held at 11 a.m. at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville and at 2 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Lexington.

The health care expansion is considered Beshear's legacy as governor. Under Beshear, a Democrat, Kentucky became the only Southern state to create its own health insurance exchange and accept the expansion of Medicaid to cover more, low-income citizens under the law also known as Obamacare.

Before Beshear left office Dec. 7, he held a news conference to issue a final, impassioned plea to Bevin not to dismantle the health expansion that had helped Kentucky achieve one of the nation's sharpest reductions in the number of residents without health coverage.

But Bevin, a Republican who campaigned on a pledge to scale back the Medicaid expansion and dismantle kynect, is proceeding with those plans, despite pleas from health advocates to preserve the health program.

His office said this week it expects to shut down kynect and transition Kentucky consumers to the federal health exchange by November. Bevin hopes to obtain federal permission to restructure Medicaid by next year.

Contact reporter Deborah Yetter at (502)582-4228 or at dyetter@courier-journal.com.