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Daugaard Still Stumping for Medicaid Expansion—So Dennis, How About Backing the Dems Who Back You?

Governor Dennis Daugaard is not giving up on Medicaid expansion, but he’s missing an obvious avenue for increasing the chances of passing the plan: helping Democrats win in November.

Governor Daugaard is hitting the media pretty hard this week with pro-expansion talk. On KELO Radio Monday, the Governor told Greg Belfrage he thinks the Senate will be more conservative after the election but the House will be less conservative.

I remind the Governor that several of us Democrats are working to make the Senate and the House less conservative and more practical. If the Governor wants to provide affordable health coverage for 50,000 South Dakotans, lower health care costs for everyone in South Dakota, bring in hundreds of millions in federal stimulus dollars in the form of health care spending, and create thousands of jobs, and if his cranky conservative party members are unwilling to take that entirely sensible step, the South Dakotans who stand to benefit from Medicaid expansion probably would not hold it against the Governor if he decided to help Democrats replace a passel of Republican legislators who are putting partisan politics above the public interest. Besides, Governor Daugaard supposedly ran his last campaign in 2014. He won’t appear on a ballot again; he is in the perfect position to do the right thing, partisan interests be darned.

If actively supporting Democrats is too high a hill to climb for our Governor, he can take a compromise position and simply decline to support Republican legislative candidates who refuse to sign on to Medicaid expansion. Don’t write me a campaign check, Dennis, but don’t write speciously squishy Al Novstrup a check, either. Let Medicaid holdouts stand on their own and defend their refusal to help South Dakota on their own dime.

Related: Lt. Gov. Matt Michels told WNAX Monday that there is some logic to waiting to see what changes may happen at the national level in the November elections that might affect the Affordable Care Act that makes Medicaid expansion possible. But with Bernie Sanders coming squarely behind Hillary Clinton and thus guaranteeing that her nine-point lead over the Republican nominee will go nowhere but up and probably bring more U.S. Senate and House seats along with her, it should be clear that the ACA and Medicaid expansion are here to stay.

10 Comments

  1. jerry 2016-07-13 09:37

    Daugaard proves again and again that he is really not the leader of the state. He has as much power as a toothless hound, or so he wants us rubes to believe. In truth, Daugaard is king of the South Dakota bull—- mountain. He had demanded that Natives be dealt with by the federal government regarding healthcare for reimbursement through Medicaid, the feds complied and Daugaard lied, hands are tied. His stumping around the state is just another act of pumping the flesh and showing his mug for a future run at political office. Daugaard could give a damn about the working poor and also about bringing money to the state that cannot be corrupted by him and his gang of thugs and robbers.

  2. Steve Sibson 2016-07-13 11:42

    “he’s missing an obvious avenue for increasing the chances of passing the plan: helping Democrats win in November.”

    Then he should just go ahead and change his registration to Democrat.

  3. mike from iowa 2016-07-13 12:05

    Sibby-it is called being bi-partisan. Despite that word bi there are no negative connotations in bi-partisan.

  4. Rorschach 2016-07-13 14:03

    If Governor Janklow were in office and wanted to pass something he wouldn’t ask legislators to support it he would tell them why they are supporting it. And he would have good reasons tailored to each individual legislator. You got a pet project in your district? Not happening. That’s politics. Some are good at the game. Others not so much.

    Consider it a missed opportunity that Governor Daugaard refused medicaid expansion for years for ideological reasons before he came around and worked out a good deal with the feds. Had he started a few years earlier he could have made it happen. But being against it for so long before he was for it cost him and the state and the working poor a bundle.

    The notion that Hillary is ahead by 9 points is complete nonsense. Trump is ahead in some swing states, but that’s temporary as I see it. Bernie supporters are not exactly flocking to Hillary yet, but will as the election gets closer. Still, telling yourself a false story that you’re ahead by a mile is a recipe for failure. She’s not ahead. If she were ahead it means nothing at this time. Hillary needs to get out there and earn it – which I believe she is doing. Don’t get complacent about this race. It’s not anywhere close to over.

  5. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-07-13 16:50

    Ror, I agree with your last point. As I said yesterday, “Never assume victory. Always run as if you’re behind.” But as your own analysis suggests, Clinton goes nowhere but up from here.

    The comparison of Daugaard to Janklow is apt. On what issues has Daugaard played hardball? For which issues has he really fought?

  6. Douglas Wiken 2016-07-13 19:46

    Daugaard should call the session. It would make the opponents obvious and if this fails to pass, voters would know who to dump in the next election.

  7. Steve Sibson 2016-07-14 07:47

    “called being bi-partisan”

    That is actually the synthesis to a Hegelian dialectic. What the propagandists don’t tell us is that both sides want bigger government, which means the people become smaller.

  8. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-07-14 15:50

    Sibby, I wish you’d come up here to Aberdeen and campaign on behalf of my opponent using language just like that. You’d boost my margin of victory by ten percentage points.

  9. Steve Sibson 2016-07-14 16:13

    Cory you are right. I have been in enough campaigns to know that the people don’t like the truth. Deception is much more effective.

  10. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-07-14 16:21

    Sibby, please entertain the possibility that even if you are speaking some sort of nominal truth, you are speaking so abstractly that no one else cares. You are speaking in an abstruse code that, even if people took time to understand, would not produce any practical results for our republic. We can talk all day about the Hegelian dialectic, but that won’t provide affordable health insurance to 50,000 South Dakotans. The Hegelian dialectic won’t save a single life. Good policy and good sense will.

    If I were Governor, I would never engage in a single public debate about the Hegelian dialectic. I would never privately twist any legislator’s arm with my position on the Hegelian dialectic. I’d call the special session, get every legislator’s vote on the record, as Douglas suggests, and then dump big chunks of money in the coffers of every candidate who votes for the program I want and in the coffers of every challenger to someone who votes against it.

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