The major groups that backed Medicaid expansion in South Dakota say they have won.
55% of voters are in favor of expansion w/ 74% of precincts reporting
South Dakotans Decide Health Care, the American Heart Association, and the American Cancer Society are all declaring victory. pic.twitter.com/azv9LbG9ZA
— Arielle Zionts (@Ajzionts) November 9, 2022
South Dakota voters decided to cover 40,000 of their fellow residents and take a fire hose of free federal cash to pay for Legacy Medicaid by voting to expand Medicaid to individuals earning 138% Federal Poverty Level or less.
State initiative/referendums have been a successful pathway to expanding Medicaid in states where the local elites don’t want to expand. There are just a few states left where this pathway is plausibly viable:
Not sure who else needs this map but I assume it's not just me
MS and WY colored as they are to indicate the current judicial suspension of ballot initiatives in MS and the notorious difficulty of ballot initiatives in WY.
(Also please let me know if I made any errors) pic.twitter.com/hCSVWYmSKC
— Adrianna McIntyre (@onceuponA) September 13, 2022
So is Florida next?
On The Road – Argiope – Catalunya
Baud
Slowly but surely.
MomSense
Thank you, South Dakota!!
Betsy
I keep reading about behind-the-scenes committee negotiations on Medicaid expansion in the NC lege. They were commenced by the beady-eyed right-wingers in charge. It seems that the hospitals, some of NC’s most powerful lobbyists, are feeling the pain and brought this on.
As a good friend likes to say:
Not everything in government is political. Sometimes the laws of physics win.
David Anderson
@Betsy: a lot is going on in Raleigh on state health policy including but not only Expansion.
If anything passes it will be a spinach and dessert bill where everyone gets something and eats a loss as well on a different axis.
SFAW
Assuming a typo, and you meant “is”:
No. Ballot initiatives (etc) don’t mean shit in FL, unless they’re for pro-RWMF policies.
A few years ago, there was a ballot initiative re: restoring the vote to various ex-convicts, passed by a large margin (I think), and the RWMF lege said “fuck you, we want to retain power” and passed the current (vote suppression) laws, which DeathFascist has used when the whim strikes him.
Brachiator
This is great news, although I think that South Dakota was also a state with a lot of people fighting against reasonable Covid recommendations.
Votes like this will make it harder for the Republicans to come after Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare.
Yutsano
@Brachiator: .
As the saying goes, hold their beer. The only thing stopping that now is even if they get the majority in the House it’s going to be so narrow there’s no way they could pull that off in the next couple of years. I hope Nancy has taught Hakeem well.
Percysowner
Great News! Sadly, I think the Right Wing Coalition of the Supreme Court is about to declare that Medicaid is not constitutional and must be gutted.
kindness
I am not convinced the Seniors in Florida would vote to expand their own Medicare let alone Medicaid. There must be something in the water there. I suspect it’s prion disease spread by ingesting the monkey brains (h/t Charles Pierce).
billcinsd
Yay. I voted for something that won. That doesn’t happen very often