Kaiser Family Foundation says the Republican “American Health Care Act” will cost South Dakota health insurance buyers thousands of dollars each year. Scott A. Duke, president of the South Dakota Association of Healthcare Organizations, has sent Rep. Kristi Noem a letter saying her party’s health care plan will cost our state hundreds of millions of dollars:
…the AHCA proposal includes significant changes to the funding structure for Medicaid and gives more authority to states for operation of such programs. However, the switch to a per-capita cap funding model for Medicaid would make significant reductions ($880 billion nationally over 10 years, according to the CBO) to a program that provides services to our most vulnerable populations. Estimates point to a 30 percent reduction in Medicaid for states. Given that the South Dakota DSS budget for FY 18 was $1.1 billion, the potential losses could exceed $300 million annually in South Dakota.
South Dakota health care providers currently absorb $124 million in uncompensated care annually, and those loses, coupled with significant cuts to reimbursement from the ACA within the AHCA, cast a bleak forecast for the future of South Dakota providers, especially for rural and safety-net facilities [“SDAHO Urges Members to Reach out to Representatives on AHCA,” SDAHO, 2017.03.15].
SDAHO estimates that just the reduction in federal tax subsidies for health insurance could cause 25,000 South Dakotans to lose their coverage, contrary to the President’s promise of “insurance for everybody.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Noem posts results of a poorly worded snap poll from her unannounced and tightly controlled telephone town hall tonight and concludes that “we need to #RepealAndReplace #Obamacare”:
No, Congresswoman, the logical conclusion of those button-pressings is that you should get us in touch with those 17% of respondents who say their premiums went down so we can switch to their plans!
The logical conclusion is also SDAHO’s: the GOP plan insures fewer people and raises costs compared to the Affordable Care Act. Dump TrumpCare, protect Medicaid, and make the ACA work better!
She left a message on my answering machine. So, she can have a telephone town hall, but can’t hold a real one in South Dakota when she was here on “spring break.” I always miss her calls and wonder how I got on her elite list which evidently includes mostly people who she thinks will agree with her.
Geesh NOem is a dolt. She would make a perfect transition to our current dolt’s position. Neither one knows or cares about the concept of what Medicaid and Medicare is all about. 300 million to these clowns is like chump change.
Kristi of NOem and her equally idiotic partisan dopey compatriot, Rounds, are too stupid to realize this or even care, as they’re too ideologically blinded. They only go by the winger talking points they’re handed, they probably don’t even understand them as they’re saying them. They also have no conception of the horrible economic impact and devastation that Medicare and Social Security cuts would have on the majority of their own constituents, not to mention rural health care itself.
I’m sure they’ll find ways to blame out-of-office Obama and the powerless Dems and their impacted minions will believe them. The hell of it is that the majority of people in this state whom these policies will impact the most are the ones who voted for the person and party that’s screwing them. I guess their blind partisanship, racism, sexism, anti-gay bigotry and gun obsessions are more important to them.
Noem will probably send a selfie of her boots.
I got the Noem town hall call, too, and I have been on her call list since 2011. And since then, I have never heard a tough question directed at her. In fact, they tend to be rhetorical questions of a conservative bent, which she then feeds off of and builds upon. They are not town hall calls, rather they are merely a political info commercial of conservative political thought via a landline…..
She did keep telling us, though, on the call the other night about how great the AHCA would be for South Dakota. Apparently, has of yet, she has not talked to leaders from our South Dakota hospitals, however…..
Representative Noem needs to hold a real town hall meeting with her constituents. If she wants to be governor, then she needs to show that she can handle the truth. When Bill Janklow closed the USD/Springfield campus back in 1984, he still had the guts to hold a town hall meeting in Springfield, that filled a high school gymnasium….. My only question is, does she have those same guts?……. And thus, the guts to be an effective governor as well…..