Tagged: Governor Steve Beshear

A new person is joning the Beshear administration to tend to the state's budget, but she's familiar face to Lt. Gov. Jerry Abramson in his last government role as mayor of Metro Louisville.

Gov. Steve Beshear has hired a new state budget director with nearly three decades of government service so far.

Jane Driskell has served in various government roles over 27 years, including a stint as chief financial officer for Louisville Metro government.

A progressive economic group says Kentucky should expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act based on recently release Census data.

The Kentucky Center for Economic Policy points to data that shows the percentage of Kentuckians without insurance dropped last year based on early elements of the health care law.

The drop was mainly attributed to a large number of young adults who are staying on their parents’ insurance thanks to one of the law’s provision.

Governor Steve Beshear has named the members of the state health insurance exchange board.

The now-19 member board includes top level officials from Kentucky's major insurers, including Anthem, Humana and Bluegrass Family Health.

It also includes represents from the state’s major hospitals, including Central Baptist in Lexington and KentuckyOne Health, which operates statewide.

Patient advocate groups, including Kentucky Voices for Health, AARP and Kentucky Youth Advocates, also have seats on the board.

One of Kentucky’s two Democratic Congressmen believes his party has a good shot at unseating U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell in 2014.

So far, many of the state’s top Democrats have announced plans to avoid challenging the Senate Minority Leader. That includes Attorney General Jack Conway, who ran for Senate against Rand Paul in 2010, former state Auditor Crit Luallen and current Auditor Adam Edelen.

But Congressman John Yarmuth, D-3, says he believes most of the other well known Democrats could unseat McConnell, including Governor Steve Beshear or Congressman Ben Chandler.

Governor Steve Beshear says he will appoint a new chief of staff soon, despite still being saddened by the sudden loss of his former chief of staff, Mike Haydon.

Haydon died suddenly of a heart attack earlier this month. Haydon worked in government for more than three decades, and had been Beshear's chief of staff since 2010.

Beshear called Haydon his “right arm,” but says the position needs to be filled.

Nine million tons of Appalachian coal will be heading to India this year, after a new deal was announced yesterday between several Kentucky coal producers and an Indian company. This is good news for the struggling Kentucky coal industry—but it may not be enough.