Kentucky governor jabs GOP senators over O-Care

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) jabbed Kentucky’s Republican senators, who he said are suddenly sounding like they support the state’s healthcare exchange.

Beshear noted that Sen. Rand Paul and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have both argued that Kentucky’s exchange could live on if ObamaCare was repealed.

{mosads}“As you know, our two U.S. senators are among President Obama’s most vehement critics and quite honestly voters in Kentucky don’t support the president very strongly,” he said during a conference Tuesday held by the healthcare organization Enroll America.

“Now that we have 421,000 potential voters in Kentucky signed up for healthcare, our senators and others seem to be looking at it a little differently and trying to talk about it a little differently,” he added.

Paul and McConnell have both made comments that if the Affordable Care Act was repealed the states own health exchange created under the law could survive.

A recent poll found that a majority of Kentuckians oppose ObamaCare but a plurality still likes the state healthcare exchange created by the law.

McConnell is facing a tough re-election challenge from Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who has called out the GOP leader for his comments that Kentucky’s exchange could survive if ObamaCare was repealed.

Beshear has become a Democratic favorite for pushing through a Medicaid expansion in Kentucky in May through an executive order despite opposition from the state legislature.

The governor was also touted by President Obama during his State of the Union Address earlier this year as a “man possessed” to bring healthcare to more Kentuckians.