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Weiland Offers Two Medicaid Expansion Initiatives; Ravnsborg Offers Benign Explanations

Wow—pretending to be Attorney General has made Jason Ravnsborg so tired that, presented with two potential ballot questions to expand Medicaid in South Dakota, he didn’t even bother to rig his statutorily required explanations with SDGOP propganda!

Ballot question promoter Rick Weiland of Sioux Falls has submitted two initiatives—one a law, one a constitutional amendment—to expand Medicaid. They aren’t long; each fits on a single page. Here’s the proposed initiated measure:

Rick Weiland, initiated measure to expand Medicaid, final draft submitted to Attorney General's office, received by Secretary of State with AG explanation 2020.07.17.
Rick Weiland, initiated measure to expand Medicaid, final draft submitted to Attorney General’s office, received by Secretary of State with AG explanation 2020.07.17.

The initiated amendment, proposed to insulate Medicaid expansion from (Republican) Legislative sabotage or repeal, differs only in not citing specific federal law and not specifying the rule-making authority of the Department of Social Services.

Ravsnborg, who hates Medicaid expansion and everything else Obamacare, totally missed his opportunity to write anything bad about Weiland’s proposals on the ballot. Ravnsborg’s identical explanations are pretty straightforward and mostly restate Weiland’s legal text:

Medicaid is a program, funded by the State and the federal government, to provide medial coverage for low-income people who are in certain designated categories. This measure expands Medicaid eligibility in South Dakota. It requires the State to provide Medicaid benefits to any person over age 18 and under 65 whose income is at or below 133% of the federal poverty level and who meets other eligibility requirements in federal law. For people who qualify under this measure, the State may not impose burdens or restrictions that are greater than those imposed on any other group eligible for medical assistance.

The State must obtain federal approval of the medicaid expansion coverage set forth in this measure. Additionally, the South Dakota Department of Social Services must pass rules to implement this measure [Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg, explanation of initiated measure to expand Medicaid, filed 2020.07.17].

Maybe Ravnsborg, who may be running for reëlection on the same 2022 ballot as these initiatives (unless Shantel Krebs gets a law degree and stages another coup against a GOP nincompoop), realizes that Medicaid expansion is a slam dunk with voters (even conservative Oklahomans passed it last month). Maybe he realizes what John Tsitrian mentions, that Medicaid expansion is a nice way to bring some more federal dollars in to shore up the state budget:

My guess is that the strong Republican support Medicaid expansion has gotten, first from then-Gov. Mike Pence, when he put it into place in Indiana in 2014, and most recently in Oklahoma, where the dollars-and-cents aspects of the issue were overwhelmingly supportive of the idea, could put some pressure on Noem, particularly as the state – along with the rest of the country – is dealing with what will probably be one of the worst recessions in history.

Yes, South Dakota has to shell out some money to get this thing going, but Noem’s predecessor, Republican Dennis Daugaard favored expansion and came up with a fairly decent plan to keep it from biting into the state’s budget [John Tsitrian, “Medicaid Expansion Petitions Are About to Go Public in South Dakota. Oklahoma Just Said Yes. We Should Too,” South Dakota Standard, 2020.07.19].

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Weiland still has to get these measures on the 2022 ballot. He can’t start circulating petitions until this November 8; he will then have one full year to collect 16,961 signatures for the initiated measure and 33,921 signatures for the amendment. He has the next three months to buy his circulators masks, gloves, and 50,000 pens and figure out how to safely interact with tens of thousands of voters in ways that won’t spread coronavirus.

7 Comments

  1. mike from iowa 2020-07-20 07:59

    to provide medial coverage for low-income people who are in certain designated categories.

    Someone explain what “medial” coverage is, please and thank you.

  2. Jenny 2020-07-20 10:36

    Come on SD, you can do it! Don’t be last in the nation again. If Oklahoma voted in Medicaid expansion you can too.

  3. bearcreekbat 2020-07-20 10:41

    Cory, do you have a link to the language of the proposed amendment to the State Constitution?

  4. jerry 2020-07-20 12:21

    In two weeks, American healthcare for everyone. Yep, you read that right and it comes right straight from the horse’s arse himself, the traitor in our white house.
    Good news!

    “Donald Trump says he’ll be signing a complete replacement plan for the Affordable Care Act in two weeks! Actually within two weeks! That’s what he told Fox’s Chris Wallace in the totally otherwise unhinged interview that aired Sunday. Okay, totally unhinged.

    “We’re signing a healthcare plan within two weeks, a full and complete healthcare plan,” Trump told Wallace. “We’re going to sign an immigration plan, a healthcare plan, and various other plans.” Oh, yeah, immigration, too. Might as well throw in infrastructure. In two weeks. That’s after he said on Thursday that he was soon “going into the world of health care—very complete health care, and we have a lot of very exciting things to discuss.” Very complete health care. In two weeks. While Congress is fighting over the next phase of coronavirus relief—and it’s going to be a fight—and the national defense authorization.” https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/20/1962282/-Untethered-from-reality-Trump-insists-he-ll-sign-a-full-and-complete-healthcare-plan-in-two-weeks?utm_campaign=trending

    republicans, see the fat white monkey in the zoo that you put there. The white monkey just tosses feces around while EB5 Short Rounds and Waldo..er Thune, lap it up like mother’s milk. Proud moments for American democracy…or whatever it is that we’ve got going on now.

    Boy, just in time for the Rally!

  5. Cathy B 2020-07-20 21:39

    How about we all ask our state legislators (& candidates) what are the current excuses for not expanding Medicaid? It seems to me the old excuses are now out the window. Let’s ask them and see what they say.

  6. Debbo 2020-07-20 23:44

    I don’t know why red Idaho’s successful initiated measure to get Medicaid keeps getting ignored in this discussion. Weird.

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