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Maine Voters Expand Medicaid; Ohioans Reject Drug Price Caps

Yesterday’s election saw voters in seven states deciding 22 ballot measures. Among the noteworthy initiatives and referenda:

  1. After five vetoes by cranky Governor LePage, Maine voters approved expanding Medicaid under the robust Affordable Care Act. That expansion could provide 70,000 Mainers with affordable health coverage. Maine voters also approved a $105-million bond issue to repair roads and bridges and rejected a new casino,
  2. Ohio voters rejected a prescription drug price cap by a 4-to-1 margin, a slightly larger ratio than the margin by which the pharmaceutical industry outspent proponents. A petition to place a similar measure on South Dakota’s 2018 ballot was just submitted to our Secretary of State Monday. Ohio voters did stroke California billionaire Henry T. Nicholas’s vanity by approving his generic crime victims bill of rights named for his poor dead sister. While Nicholas never visited South Dakota to promote his ballot measure here in 2016, he appeared in person at the victory rally in Columbus.
  3. New Yorkers said no to a constitutional convention but approved letting judges take pensions away from elected officials busted for corruption.
  4. New Jersey voters approved borrowing $125 million to upgrade their public libraries and preventing the state from diverting pollution settlement funds to non-environmental uses.
  5. Washington State voters rejected three tax increases approved by their legislature. However, strangely, these three “advisory” votes have no legal impact… which leads me to ask why Washington would put anything on the ballot that isn’t binding.

16 Comments

  1. Jenny 2017-11-08 06:54

    Dems won big last night. Virginia voted in their first transgender in the state legislature. New Jersey and Va both voted in Dem governor.

  2. Jenny 2017-11-08 07:50

    From what I read, the Ohio prescription price cap did not include the 64% people of Ohio that are privately insured and that drug prices for this majority could have gone up which is a main reason why it failed miserably. Is this correct, Cory? Again, big insurance and big pharma running the show.

  3. Jenny 2017-11-08 08:07

    “To every person that’s ever been singled out, that’s ever been stigmatized, who’s ever been the misfit, who has ever been the kid in the corner, who has ever needed someone to stand up for them when they didn’t have a voice of their own, this ones for you!” -Danica Roem, the county’s first transgender on winning a State House Seat in Virginia. :)

  4. jerry 2017-11-08 08:08

    Health care in general, including prescription drugs in particular should be nationalized. When you put people’s health situations being dictated by Wall Street, it is corrupted. When the drug companies, and the rest of the healthcare delivery system hinging on quarterly profits that must show positive results, prices will go up each quarter.

  5. Jenny 2017-11-08 11:22

    Also Andrea Jenkins, first African American transgender elected to the Minneapolis City Council! Congratulations everyone!
    Come on South Dakota hop on the Peace Train!

  6. Robin 2017-11-08 11:32

    There is no way to price drugs based on VA prices. The Feds guard those prices and no state or private entity has been able to see exactly what those prices are.
    Good for keeping libraries public but at some point it’s going to come tumbling down – US money is becoming more scarce as more foreign companies buy US businesses and ship the money back to their homeland. Thought Trump was going to stop this instead of encouraging it.

  7. Robin 2017-11-08 11:36

    Jenny Dems may have won big but they also moved another step towards the tea party. So long party of tolerance in some aspects

  8. Jenny 2017-11-08 12:58

    What do you mean Robin?

  9. Roger Cornelius 2017-11-08 15:16

    Just as Gov. Daugaard went against the will of the people on IM22, Maine Gov. LePage has vowed to repeal or veto the Medicaid Expansion in his state.

  10. jerry 2017-11-08 15:39

    With Maine, their ordeal is far from over. Now the legislature gets to see about the will of the people and they will fuss and fume over it and try to deny it.
    Democracy has had a difficult time in the United States in the last few years. All it took to topple that apparently fragile situation was the popular and electoral election of a Black man.

    Pretty weak sauce if that is all it takes, Russia had noted that as well and quickly moved in on us the US. Putin is saying that democracy in the west is simply not as good as what he is providing. Republicans here agree to that as well. Listen to them, they are all in lockstep with the oligarch trump and swamp.

  11. Jenny 2017-11-08 16:43

    Does anyone know what Robin’s talking about?

  12. grudznick 2017-11-08 19:03

    Anything like this drug price thing, being pushed by out-of-state libbies nationwide, must be a bad thing. You don’t even need to understand it, just VNOE.

  13. jerry 2017-11-08 19:18

    “out-of-state libbies nationwide” tells me that the drug thing has happened with your keyboard. Tell it to sober up.

  14. Robin 2017-11-08 19:30

    Yes I am commenting about Northam’s comments and about the fact that he removed Lt Governorwhen Northam’s campaign removed Justin Fairfax from fliers because he wouldn’t cave and support the popular Atlantic Coast Pipeline due to his environmental concerns- Northam was dropped by the PAC because of that statement but it went public when he went Republican on Sanctuary cities- NO I DID NOT get it from whatever site you are sourcing I got it straight from the DFA PAC.

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