170 new KY COVID-19 cases and 6 deaths. Beshear to reopen KYnect health exchange.
Gov. Andy Beshear announced 170 new cases of COVID-19 in Kentucky on Wednesday, bringing the state’s total to at least 12,995 cases as hundreds of people stood waiting outside the Capitol, hoping to revive stalled unemployment insurance claims that have jammed up the state’s system because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“No one in state government is going to be happy until every Kentuckian has received the benefits for which they qualify,” Beshear said during his Wednesday coronavirus update.
Six more people with the virus have died, Beshear said, bringing the statewide death toll to at least 518. Twenty-two new residents at nursing homes have tested positive for the virus, as have 15 staff. One more resident has died. “Again, this is an area this virus hits really, really hard,” Beshear said.
At least 329,710 tests have been administered across the state — an increase of more than 5,200 tests since Tuesday. There are roughly 190 locations around the state to get tested. Information about each location is available at kycovid19.ky.gov Next week, Kroger will offer free drive-thru testing sites in Fayette, Jefferson, Shelby and Warren counties.
At least 416 people are currently hospitalized with the virus, 61 are in intensive care and 3,444 have recovered from the virus.
KYnect health exchange reopening in 2022
The governor has repeatedly said the virus has laid bare systemic inequalities, including Kentuckian’s access to health care.
“This pandemic shows us that the lack of good health care options makes us more vulnerable and less resilient,” he said.
That’s in part why Beshear has submitted a declaration of intent to the federal government to reinstate the state-based health care exchange known as KYnect, he announced on Wednesday. The state-based exchange will begin Jan. 1, 2022.
The health care exchange was rolled out initially by his father and Democratic predecessor, Gov. Steve Beshear, in 2013. It was dismantled by Republican Gov. Matt Bevin in 2017. In the four years that KYnect was in effect, Kentucky’s uninsured population dropped from more than 14 percent to just over 5 percent, providing health insurance to half a million Kentuckians
“I’m committed to getting every Kentuckian signed up for health care,” the governor said. “This is just a start of how we’re going to provide that.”
A state-based exchange, he said, will significantly reduce the cost of premiums, restore local control over the health care system and improve inefficiencies — “I believe we can do this much better than the federal government.”
Kentuckians last year paid close to $9.8 million in fees to use the federal government’s health exchange — far exceeding what he expects KYnect to cost, year over year.
Beshear said the dormant KYnect system is still intact, it just needs to be upgraded — a one-time cost of $5 million. Annual operation of the KYnect system would cost no more than $2 million, he said.
After he took office in December, one of Beshear’s first major moves as governor was to rescind Bevin’s proposed controversial changes to expanded Medicaid, known as the Kentucky HEALTH plan, which sought to impose strict work requirements for able-bodied, working-age adults. It was projected to end health coverage for close to 95,000 Kentuckians.
“As we come out of COVID-19, we want to be better,” Beshear said. “We want to build a better economy, [and] we want to provide better health care.”
In-person unemployment help to continue
Hundreds of people, many experiencing wait times of at least eight hours, some driving hours to simply stand in line, waited in front of the state Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday to try and get their unemployment claims processed in person. Beshear said by the end of Wednesday, at least 1,100 of those people will have gotten their claims processed.
More in-person services to process Kentuckians’ still pending unemployment claims will be offered from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday and Friday at the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, at 275 East Main Street in Frankfort. People with outstanding claims from March will have their own priority line.
“Our communication’s not been good. It’s not where it should be,” Beshear said of the department that has tried to handle a tidal wave of claims since March. “These are our citizens, these are my people, and we should’ve done better.”
More than 850,000 initial claims for jobless benefits have been filed since early March, when the state began shutting down the economy to slow the spread of COVID-19. While the vast majority of those claims have been processed, roughly 7,500 claims are still outstanding from March, 27,000 from April and 17,000 from May.
This story was originally published June 17, 2020 at 4:49 PM.
