SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) — Dakotans for Health say they will continue circulating petitions to expand Medicaid in South Dakota.
The group says it will continue gathering signatures to put the measure on the ballot since federal Judge Charles Kornmann extended the deadline to the first week of May 2022.
The group also says it will lead a campaign to defeat Amendment C, which would require 60% of voters to approve a Medicaid expansion ballot measure.
Below is a news release from Dakotans for Health.
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Sioux Falls, SD…. Dakotans for Health Founder, Rick Weiland, announced today that his organization will continue collecting Medicaid expansion initiative signatures in light of Federal Judge Charles B. Kornmann’s recent decision to push back the turn in deadline for initiated laws to the first week of May 2022.
“In the interest of the 42,500 hard working low-income South Dakotans who struggle every day just to keep a roof over their head and food on the table, we have decided to unite behind one constitutional amendment, and we will continue to collect signatures to place our Medicaid initiated law on the November 2022 ballot.”
“The last thing we need is to have two proposed constitutional amendments on the November 2022 ballot,” Weiland said. “We will continue petitioning for our initiated law giving voters the opportunity to pass both an amendment to the state’s constitution and a law next year.”
“It is simply outrageous that 42,500 of our fellow South Dakotans have no access to life saving preventive care and necessary medicines. People have died and many have certainly gotten sicker – and when they get sick, they get care of the most expensive kind, and we end up paying for it with higher co-pays, premiums, and healthcare costs. This could and should have been done 10 years ago when the Affordable Care Act was passed and I hope that by unifying behind one Medicaid expansion amendment and one law, that we will finally get this done,” Weiland concluded.
Weiland’s group, Dakotans for Health, will also be leading a campaign to defeat the Legislature’s Amendment C, which if passed next June, would require Medicaid expansion to pass by a super majority of 60% next November. Placing their “Amendment C” requiring Medicaid expansion to pass by 60% on next June’s primary ballot when only 25% of voters participate in a primary, is a flagrant abuse of political power,” Weiland concluded.
Medicaid is a federal/state program that provides health insurance to low-income workers and the disabled. If the voters approve expansion, an individual making less than $17,000 would be eligible for Medicaid healthcare coverage. The federal government would cover 90 – 95% of the cost returning close to $300 million of South Dakota taxpayers dollars back to the state, a 15 to 1 return on investment.
Petitions for initiated laws are due in May 2022.
