(WKYT) – Kentucky Democrats gathered in front of the state capitol to express disappointment with the outcome of the 2026 regular session.
Kentucky lawmakers wrapped up the long session that produced a new two-year spending plan along wit
h hundreds of new laws.
“Our caucuses wrote legislation to expand, not restrict access to health care, affordable housing and education,” said Colmon Elridge, Kentucky Democratic Party chairman.
Elridge, along with leaders in the House and Senate, said those three areas are hurting more because of bills passed or not passed in the session. They said because of actions in Washington and inaction in Frankfort, health care will suffer.
“It doesn’t do enough for rural hospitals already on the brink with federal cuts that are looming,” said Rep. Adam Moore, D-Ky District 45.
Democrats said they feel they have momentum based on what took place this session. Kentuckians will go to the polls in May and again in November to elect or re-elect senators and representatives.
“The voters this November will have a choice, they can choose to have the same cynicism of this Republican majority,” Elridge said.
Lawmakers said there were some basic needs that could have been accomplished but were not.
“We talk about affordable housing but we could not get the job done. You want to know what the biggest missed opportunity was, it was just that,” said Sen. Reggie Thomas, D-Ky District 13.
Senate Republicans issued a statement that said education received record funding and the governor’s Medicaid numbers are not accurate and rely on one-time money to fund multiple years. Republican leaders were not available for comment for interviews Thursday.
Here is the entire statement issued by spokesman Dustin Isaacs:
The governor didn’t actually provide the funding for Medicaid he and KY Democrats are trying to imply they did in their proposed budget.
In education, we again provided record funding and when including teacher pension, we are well above even the rate of inflation.
MEDICAID RESPONSE
It’s probably worth taking a closer look at how the Governor actually put his Medicaid numbers together, because the way it’s being described publicly leaves out some key mechanics and it simply won’t be accurate.
At a basic level, the Governor is doing two things at once.
First, he’s pulling in about $350 million in one-time dollars from the insurance fund and using that to support Medicaid. That lets him back out a similar amount of recurring General Fund in that first year. But that money isn’t ongoing, it doesn’t exist in the next cycle, so it’s essentially filling a permanent cost with temporary dollars.
At the same time, he’s also shifting roughly $240 million in MCO payments out of the fiscal year and into the next one. So you’re lowering the cost on paper in year one, but those bills don’t go away, they just show up later. This shifting of funds is what Sen. McDaniel has referred to as a “gimmick.”
When you put those together, what it effectively does is make the two-year window look balanced, but you’ve created a hole going forward. In year two and beyond, you’re missing that $350 million in one-time support, and you’ve also got those delayed payments coming due. That becomes part of the new “base” the next budget has to deal with.
That’s really the concern from our end; this doesn’t solve the projected underlying growth in Medicaid, it shifts it and pushes the pressure into the next budget cycle, and I’m not aware of any proposal from the governor to deal with the fallout of that.
However, he won’t be in office so perhaps it’s not a long term concern as long as the two-years ahead seem covered.
On the cost side, we did receive additional detail from the administration late in the process, but it primarily outlined projected increases and did not reconcile those with the fact that enrollment has declined by more than 100,000 individuals compared to earlier forecasts.
On the Governor’s citing of legislative items related to Medicaid, those are items factored into the base funding he was already able to support in the previous budget, and it doesn’t explain additional growth in costs. Am I to assume the governor opposes those? If the Governor is saying there isn’t sufficient funding like his argument with SB 151, will he choose to not implement. I’ll remind you that he unilaterally expanded Medicaid services without legislative authorization.
Additionally, the legislature is greatly concerned about the lack of cost control we’re seeing from the administration. There have been instances involving significant Medicaid dollars, including over $100 million in hospital-related funding issues (KHA) and more than $100 million in fraudulent billing tied to Appalachian Regional Healthcare. Those situations raise serious concerns about oversight, and until we see a stronger commitment to monitoring taxpayer dollars, it’s difficult to fully validate the administration’s projected cost estimates.
No matter what the governor wants to say, at best his “full funding” is smoke and mirrors that should not be taken at face value. I believe the legislature’s budget operates more honestly, and we continue to hope the governor will come to the table with transparency, explanation and real solutions for the unsustainable growth we are seeing in the program.
Unless lawmakers are called back for a special session, they will not vote on new laws until next January.