Support South Dakota’s best independent journalism: donate to Dakota Free Press via PayPal!
House Ways and Means stayed up all night to approve the Republican health care bill after 4 a.m. this morning.
Early in the 18-hour hearing, South Dakota’s lone Congresswoman, Kristi Noem, tweeted a picture of her fancy cowboy boots beneath her Ways and Means desk. I retweeted, asking what percentage of a monthly health insurance premium those boots could pay for. I received no reply, and Noem subsequently took her boots off Twitter.
As the hearing wore on, Rep. Noem posted a photo of her busy desk:
Banana, snack bar… Rep. Noem worked hard to keep up her calorie intake, even though she didn’t appear to need it. My quick scan of the C-SPAN video and transcript of the hearing indicates she did not speak once during the 18-hour hearing.
Coming up on midnight, Rep. Noem took another snack break:
She said the protein juice was “better than the 4 hour old pizza in the committee office.” I suggest that any declaration that a protein drink is better than pizza is as indicative of detachment from reality (though not as legally and constitutionally grave) as Donald Trump’s paranoid assertion that Barack Obama tapped his phone.
Thus sustained, Rep. Noem came out of House Ways and Means with a cheery thumbs-up for cutting taxes for rich people and booting people off their insurance:
Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is pointing his thumb the other way. The Arkanses Republican tweeted this morning that the House health care bill—passed on party lines without amendment by Noem and her colleagues—won’t pass the Senate in its current form. He accused Noem and her House colleagues of acting “like Dems did on O’care,” rushing a bill with no budget estimate to satisfy an arbitrary deadline rather than provide “better, more affordable health care for Americans.”
Sarah Kliff of Vox agrees, writing that this week’s action shows Republicans “plan to move more quickly and less deliberatively than Democrats did in drafting the Affordable Care Act.”
But at least Rep. Noem is keeping her strength up.
Support South Dakota’s best independent journalism: donate to Dakota Free Press via PayPal!
Does it seem just a bit odd that the Republicans have had 7 years to come up with an alternative health care plan and now that they are in charge, they need an all nite session just to get this “plan” out of committee? Wassa matta, Ms Noem? Couldn’t come up with any comments in your entire tenure as our “representative”?
Republican seat warmer – along for the ride.
I would like to know what is going to happen to the Indian Health Care Act? Is it still part of the bill or what? Noem have anything to say what will happen to Indian Health Care Act?
She as stupid as all Republicans!
I can’t read all the text on those papers Rep. Noem has spread out there as if to impress us all, but I can tell that what those pieces of paper ARN’T are the legislation that is before her. Neither do those papers include any proposed amendments. It’s quite odd for a mark up session that she has nothing at all to offer. Quite obviously, then, Noem wasn’t there to legislate. She was there to be a sock puppet mouthing the usual talking points (that’s what I see there on her desk).
Quite odd, isn’t it, for a person who plans to run for governor of a state that is going to be absolutely hammered by Ryan’s monstrosity to be so uninterested in trying to improve the bill for her state? Rural health care is expected to be hallowed out if this bill passes as is, and Noem asked no questions, provided no input and had information about the Affordable Care Act in front of her, not the bill that was being considered. She didn’t even object to voting on the bill without any, I repeat, ANY, Congressional Budget Office figures on what the cost and impact would be to South Dakotans.
I suspect there were a few South Dakotans last night who were up that late screwing each other. Noem was busy screwing South Dakotans, too. It wasn’t that good fore me, but let’s all smoke a cigarette and pretend, along with Noem, that it was.
“fore me.”
Heh heh. Mr. Pay who was up late has many lustful things on his mind. Perhaps Ms. Noem, who probably took her boots off during this meeting just to itch her feet, was really steering all the goings on here from afar or with subtle gestures and behind-the-scenes maneuvering.
Go subsidy queen.
Trumpcare – on the way to throwing millions off of insurance. Rep. Noem should be proud. She clearly is.
What was the drama about? They already had this one done last year https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-01-08/obama-vetoes-republican-bill-repealing-parts-of-health-care-law
That silly NOem, trying to play make believe all the time.
@cah: “Kristi Noem, tweeted a picture of her fancy cowboy boots beneath her Ways and Means desk. I retweeted, asking what percentage of a monthly health insurance premium those boots could pay for.”
Probably cost less than Michelle Obama’s $540 Lanvin sneakers.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/05/michelle-obama-shoes.html
The comment should have been the difference between a real representative and a fake one. The real representative has the bull$#i+ on the outside of the boots and the fake on, the opposite.
Good question, Diana! I haven’t seen any commentary on the impact of TrumpCare on the Indian Health Care Improvement Act. The ACA removed the expiration data for the IHCIA; I haven’t seen any reports that the GOP bill puts an expiration date back.
Ever the distractor, Coyote. Let Kristi keep staring at her phone and her feet. Let’s freeze this bill until the CBO weighs in with real numbers.
Show me the boots and I’ll tell you how many months of insurance I could pay for.
The disconnect between Ms Noem and her constituency is unfathomable.
Clueless. Hear her explain how great American Health Care Act. Cadillac health plans for wealthy. 300000 voters in SD must call write her thune rounds and say NOOOOOOOO
NOem, kills Medicare as we know it as well. The gal that wants to be governor of the state of South Dakota is an equal opportunity destruction machine for the health and well being of all South Dakotan’s except her wealthy patrons, they will be just fine. If you ain’t wealthy (making over a million a year) you are gonna feel her burn in your pocketbook. NOem has never been the answer in Washington and she will only bring about more destruction here in South Dakota if she should get the win. http://www.crfb.org/blogs/full-repeal-obamacare-would-hasten-medicares-insolvency
Mrs. Nelson, the boots were definitely fancier than what I see at Runnings. I’ll keep looking for that picture in the cache.
This headline is wayyyy beneath you, and us readers.
Maybe Ms. Noem can donate her farm subsidy payments to the national health care crisis. Oh I forgot, she needs that money to keep her republican free enterprise farm going.
Ill tell you what and how much those boots are. Show us a pic
I still can’t believe this is happening!
As far as I can tell so far, the Republicans will be cutting Medicaid at around half of what Obamacare was funding it, and so this will force millions of poor to lose their coverage.
Nothing is being done to control healthcare costs but everyone gets tax credits ranging from $2000 to 4000 each.
That’s it. Basically, it’s back to where we started before the ACA but worse, b/c increasing healthcare costs have not kept up with wages. This sucks people.
Meanwhile, the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare was mainly being funded by the super wealthy so they get a nice tax break and don’t have to worry about being able to afford health insurance.
And so basically Noem is smiling because she just voted to have millions of our Nation’s poorer working class cut from Medicaid.
I predict another recession real soon. Tax credits aren’t going to solve the healthcare problem.
So I had the first 8 hours of the hearing on in the background while I was working. What a joke. Makes you consider having a direct democracy. Republicans had pretty much nothing to say. Democrats refused to talk about the actual matters being presented. When they realized none of the amendments they wanted to propose were even going to be discussed, they refused to try making one that would be a compromise. And Kristi did make a few utterances. A half dozen ‘aye’s to table all of the appeals to the chair’s ruling that the amendments weren’t germane. Because a roll call vote was requested every time, even though the votes were on party lines every time. Just a show, a waste of time.
NOem blathers about the “subsidy/tax credit” being changed to go directly to the policy holder rather than the insurance company. That is the way it is actually done. Either way, the insurance company gets that money.
What is not addressed is the high cost of the insurance itself. No where is there any mention of lowering the health insurance premiums so a 60 year old single person in South Dakota would still have an insurance premium of $802.89 per month or $9,634.68 per year for a $5,000.00 deductible plan. This is without any kind of office visit or anything, you have to satisfy 5 grand plus your co insurance for a grand total of $7,150.00 on a claim. This equates to an actual exposure of $16,784.68!
NOem is like Paul Ryan, two peas in a pod that cannot read nor can they do math. It is terrible for the state to have her in Washington, think of how she would screw this place even further by being governor. NO NOem, naked or otherwise.