120K South Dakotans Enrolled in Medicaid in March

Donald Trump and his Republican Congress seem hell-bent on cutting Medicaid  and leaving the poor even further behind the rich.

A new report from the Legislative Research Council shows how many South Dakotans are put at risk by Trumpublican politics. In March 2017, the total number of South Dakotans enrolled in Medicaid grew to 120,189. Over the past year, growth in the program has come largely from kids on CHIP:

We can look at the number of enrollees and say, “Holy cow! One in seven South Dakotans are on Medicaid!” it’s important to note that only 50% of kids on CHIP and 60% of all Medicaid enrollees actually used received Medicaid services in March (just like private insurance: a lot of us paid premiums last month but didn’t go to the hospital, thank God, Gaia, good living, or dumb luck):

$446 per child on CHIP and $1328 per other recipient—that’s we spent to keep our low-income neighbors healthy last month.

I don’t mind continuing to spend that much on Medicaid to keep our neighbors on their feet, in school, at work. (although if we can keep kids healthier with good school lunches, education, and responsible parenting, that’s fine with me, too!). Let’s hope that Trump lives up to the same expectations as the SDGOP has had for John Thune and Kristi Noem over the last several years and the unpromising performance record of his first hundred days and turns out to be a do-nothing White House occupant who can’t get his mitts on Medicaid or anything else important.