Last updated on 2020-12-12
In an interview with WNAX Monday, South Dakota Farmers Union president Doug Sombke said that South Dakota farm families have a dire need for health care coverage and would benefit immensely from expanding Medicaid. However, said Sombke, our hyperpartisan Legislature refuses to act:
We’ve already been in contact with legislators on this topic, and the unfortunate thing, Tom, is the fact that they have made it a party issue and the party that is in control doesn’t even want to address it. They don’t even want to talk about it. And that’s the sorry-ful thing. We elect these people to do good for our people, and yet they follow the party line rather than doing what’s right for the individuals in their districts [Doug Sombke, transcribed from audio, in “South Dakota Farm Group’s Top Issue Is Health Care and Medicaid Expansion,” WNAX, 2020.11.09].
What do you do when the Legislature won’t respond to the people’s needs? You take the law into your own hands, with an initiative petition. South Dakota Farmers Union is joining Dakotans for Health to put Medicaid expansion to a public vote in 2022:
Dakotans for Health, an emerging group of public officials, caregivers, health care advocates, and concerned citizens announced today the South Dakota Farmers Union (SDFU) endorsement and sponsorship of the effort to place a Medicaid reform measure on the 2022 ballot.
Doug Sombke: “This should have been done long ago when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010,” said Doug Sombke, SDFU President. “South Dakota has the highest percentage of uninsured low income adults (18-65) in the entire nation. Reforming Medicaid is not only the right thing to do, it is also good economics. It will shore up our ailing rural healthcare systems and help our rural economy. The Farmers Union is all in and committed to do whatever it takes to get this important measure before the voters in November of 2022″ [Dakotans for Health, press release, 2020.11.12].
Dakotans for Health has two versions of its Medicaid expansion proposal, an initiated law and an initiated amendment. Both would raise the income threshold allowing individuals to qualify for Medicaid to 133% of the federal poverty level. The amendment version would protect Medicaid expansion from Legislative repeal; it would also require twice as many signatures, 33,921 rather than 16,961. To qualify for the 2022 general election ballot, both petitions must be submitted to the Secretary of State with the necessary signatures by November 8, 2021.
Dakotans for Health, Farmers Union, and any other allies who sign on thus have less than a year to gather tens of thousands of signatures amidst a raging pandemic. If Farmers Union could mobilize half of South Dakota’s 29,600 farms to each take one petition and get four signatures (Ma and Pa sign at home, then get one person at the grocery store and one person at the Cenex to sign), they’d have all the signatures they need.
Aren’t community bake sales enough? Throw in a few prayers too. What else do you need?
South Dakotans are electing the wrong people, Sombke. You haven’t figured that out yet that your elected reps are not interested and just don’t care?
Actually, TX has the highest rates of uninsured people at over 17% , SD rates 38th overall and in the bottom ten for uninsured children at 7.08%.
MN, as usual, is in the top five for highest percent of people insured.
Unless there are more recent stats this is what I found.
It gets me disgusted that the richest country in the world will not provide its people with affordable healthcare all because of big business and the buying of our politicians but then Americans are more worried about wearing a mask? Go figure.
If only, now, the state Farm Bureau would do the right thing and join up with the Farmer’s Union and help get the vote to the people so their less-fortunate and poorer Bureau members could be covered, also! But, it seems, the Farm Bureau wants to adhere to the tired old GOP resistance to smart solutions for all.
Be still my heart . . . did the farmers read Warren Buffet’s long held word to get employers out of the health insurance business is better for business. Medicare for all. Now. If it’s good enough for the military, congress, president, and supreme courts – it’s good enough for all.
Sombke is right – should have been done long ago. The rest of his thoughts on the topic echo my positions when I ran for SD Senate in 2010.