Cheyene Miller

He has advocated moving state workers to a 401(k) style system and applying for a waiver to allow teachers to participate in Social Security.  He has said that while the current budget shows a surplus, it is voided by the underfunded pension system.

“We’re not really solving the problem at all,” said Bevin regarding the current pension system in the KET debate Monday.

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Conway has said that implementing such a system would actually cost the state more money, and has more or less advocated

keeping the current system in place, claiming the pension system as it exists is not an unsolvable problem because the current budget shows a $219 million surplus.

“I think we can make it,” Conway said in the KET debate. “I think that’s manageable.”

He has also said that moving teachers to a 401(k) style system would be “absolutely off the table” because they do not participate in Social Security.

On the Medicaid expansion, which has expanded health coverage to about 400,000 Kentuckians, Conway favors keeping the expansion in place as well as sustaining Kynect, the state’s private insurance market set up under the ACA which led to about 100,000 Kentuckians enrolling in private plans. Conway has repeatedly said that he will not kick half-a-million Kentuckians off their newly found health coverage and “to kick them off now would be callous.”

Bevin initially told reporters in February he would immediately reverse the expansion upon entering office, but he later backtracked and denied his statement. He said in July that he would address the expansion if needed.

“We can’t afford the current structure as it exists,” Bevin said in September.

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More recently he has posited seeking a federal waiver in the form of a block grant, and replicating a system like Indiana’s, where Medicaid beneficiaries pay higher premiums to receive better benefits.

Conway has focused his campaign heavily on education, especially advocating more funding for early childhood education by citing research that shows most brain development happens by age five.  He has shown openness to restoring some of the previous funding for higher education, and has said that he emphasizes education because he understands how state government works.

Bevin has questioned the effectiveness of Head Start and called for incentivizing careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

“If you are going to ask for taxpayer money to subsidize that education … then it should be used for things that are going to be to the best benefit of the taxpayers themselves,” he told reporters after the EKU debate.

Both candidates have touted their ability to improve the economy, albeit through different methods.

Bevin said that the pension system is the top priority to fix the state’s economy and called for making Kentucky a right-to-work state because other right-to-work states that border it receive better business.

“I’m the only one sitting here who’s ever created a job,” Bevin said in the KET debate and on numerous other occasions.

Conway has said that he favors “the right to work for better wages,” and would support a bill raising Kentucky’s minimum wage to $10.10 an hour over a three year period.  He does not favor making Kentucky a right-to-work state and said that it has economically outpaced Indiana despite their right-to-work legislation.

According to the latest Bluegrass Poll, Conway leads with 42 percent of respondents compared to 37 percent for Bevin.  Seven percent of the respondents said they would vote for independent candidate Drew Curtis and 15 percent remain undecided.

The election is Tuesday, Nov. 3.