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Tapio on Medicaid: Kill It, But Don’t Get Rid of It

By Cory Allen Heidelberger on 2017-02-12

I kid you not.

At yesterday’s crackerbarrel in Watertown, rookie Rep. Neal Tapio (R-5/Watertown responded to a question about getting rid of Medicaid by saying (timestamp 54:35), “I want to kill it altogether.”

Three minutes and fifteen seconds later, in response to a follow-up question about how we proposes to take care of elderly, children, disabled, and other folks currently on Medicaid, Rep. Tapio said, “I’m not saying that we get rid of it.”

Newspeak like that shows why Donald Trump picked Tapio to run his campaign in South Dakota.

Published in South Dakota

15 Comments

  1. Roger Cornelius 2017-02-12 18:40

    Unbelievable!!!
    But maybe not when you consider he is a 45 republican.

  2. grudznick 2017-02-12 19:36

    Mr. C, what is this “45” thing to which you keep referring? Is it a caliber of a cartridge, or some year that something offensive occurred, or a gang of that many long haired spray painting hippies or what?

  3. Darin Larson 2017-02-12 19:41

    You are getting warmer, Grudz. 45 is something offensive.

  4. grudznick 2017-02-12 19:43

    Mr. Larson, I have found the most effective fellows in politics don’t hint around with sly little euphemisms. What is it? If you don’t want to tell me, then just say “you can’t know, Mr. grudznick, because you are a most-hated dog of immense proportions.”

  6. Porter Lansing 2017-02-12 20:23

    Tapio is highly beatable. Watertown’s recent and current legislators are an embarrassment to a once powerful town. Won’t be long and the people will demand better than this fool. “Kill it, but don’t get rid of it?” Sad …

  7. grudznick 2017-02-12 20:35

    Oh. Well as you all know, grudznick is not a 45er.

  8. Darin Larson 2017-02-12 20:47

    Cory, this is just like Trump when he gets misquoted by the press. Mr. Tapio was just using your words. You said that. He’s using your words. You said that he wanted to kill it. See, so those are your words. He was just quoting you. You have got him all wrong and are treating him so unfairly. *************************

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWuc18xISwI

  9. Roger Cornelius 2017-02-12 20:52

    grudz,
    After this comment, I will no longer refer to Trump by name or call him president, he is the 45th president and that is the only recognition I will ever give him.
    Further more, any of the actions 45 takes will be attributed to the republican party as a whole.

  10. Super Sweet 2017-02-12 21:52

    Get that Jacks shirt off of him. He is an embarrassment to all.

  11. Donald Pay 2017-02-12 22:16

    Why do Trumpist Republicans have this propensity to spew a scripted irrationality before actual thinking? Once Tapio or Trump is confronted with someone who presents reality to him he seems able to see the absurdity of his original statement. But, neither ever seem able to admit error. In backing away from his original irrationality Tapio engaged in classic gaslighting, which is a Trumpian character flaw, as well.

    Tapio and Trump are walking, talking examples of a kind of dementia/mental illness I see exhibited in many of my brain injured clients.

  12. Dick J Reddy 2017-02-13 09:01

    The ‘Static’ opening picture is Jason E. Frerichs, Democrat Senator from District 1. Not Neal Tapio from District 5 who made the comment.

  13. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-02-13 09:08

    True, Dick! Alas, the video belongs to someone else, so I’m unable to reset the default screen cap.

  14. O 2017-02-14 13:10

    Donald, when politics devolves into slogans and bumper stickers, that will happen. It is that harsh realization that there is a difference between campaigning and governing, that slogans carry weight and effect when put into practice. John Oliver made the point that President Trump is taking real action against imagined problems (but many thought his policies were not literal – he wouldn’t REALLY build a wall, that would be a metaphor for more strict border enforcement and rational immigration reform). No, he will build a wall. Now we see that reality, the question of the problem that wall assumed is called to question. I will give Tapio this, he accepted another point of view and set of facts; he did not deny the questioner’s point that there is a need for Medicaid for some. His world cracked open a bit in the face of new facts. The problem is that those new facts are too often denied or replaces with “alternative facts.”

    So maybe the lesson here is when solving problems, start with the facts, with the truth, with the current state of things – THEN look to solutions.

  15. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-02-15 16:44

    O, let’s hope the intelligent questions at the crackerbarrel did drive Tapio toward a new understanding and not just a polite non-response on the spot that will be trumped by his ongoing support for Trumpist dismantling of civil society.

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