KY Tea Party Governor, Matt Bevin Sets About Destroying Obamacare To Prove It Doesn't Work

Matt Bevin, Kentucky's tea party governor, has a lot to prove—namely the tea party principle that government doesn't work. He's doing that by overseeing an ongoing disaster of a computer system that has a side effect of destroying his predecessor's successful healthcare program, thereby "proving" Obamacare can't work.

FRANKFORT, Ky. - A new state computer system meant to help people get public benefits more easily instead is creating turmoil throughout Kentucky, interrupting health coverage, food stamps or other assistance for countless individuals, according to health and social service advocates.

People seeking help must wait hours or days, repeatedly calling a state helpline only to get a recorded message that advises them to try later and then hangs up, the advocates said. Others visit overcrowded state benefit offices where they must wait for hours - sometimes the entire day—to get help, they said.

"It's really frustrating," said Emily Pickett, a Louisville mother who learned Feb. 29 two of her three small children had been cut off from Medicaid coverage. […]

Benefind is wreaking havoc with the previously smooth-running kynect  because many of the more than 500,000 Kentuckians who got health coverage through kynect were moved to the Benefind system with no warning and no explanation, advocates said.  Consumers are getting form letters telling them health coverage has been cut off or demanding more information, such as proof of income or citizenship that they already had provided through kynect, advocates said.

Bevin, critics say "has been excruciatingly slow to respond" to the crisis of Kentuckians thrown into the chaos, unable to reach anyone who can help them restore benefits.

Says Cara Stewart, a legal aid lawyer with the Kentucky Equal Justice Center, "[i]t's a dramatic reduction in accessibility. […] There's no way you can look at it and say it's not a dramatic reduction."

Now, it's entirely possible that Bevin isn't allowing this disaster to continue because of his warped ideology. He could also be massively incompetent and incapable of running a government.