Hands Off Our Healthcare

Every South Dakotan deserves greater access to more affordable quality care.  Expanding a failed government program is no solution to improving South Dakotans’ health care access.. 

Medicaid was designed as a safety net for truly vulnerable who need it the most - the elderly, disabled, and children. If voters pass Amendment D in November, Medicaid will expand in South Dakota to cover all lower-income adults ages 18 to 65.

Expanding Medicaid to able-bodied adults would:

• crowd out those who truly need it while failing to offer more or better care to those who qualify
• sideline hard-working South Dakotans instead of helping them get back to work
• shift lower income South Dakotans from their silver-level private plans onto Medicaid - and shifts that cost from federal to the state

In other states we've already been able to see the adverse impact to those most vulnerable, to rural care providers, and to the state budget. Even if someone wanted to expand, now is the worst time to do it. Recent federal legislation has expanded the Healthcare Exchange. Right now, lower income South Dakotans have access to silver-level private plans with zero premiums. If South Dakota expands Medicaid, that is taken away from those eligible for Medicaid - reducing their access to care and the reimbursement to providers. 

There are solutions that out-compete Medicaid in the care they can provide all South Dakotans. We can look to free market innovations that strengthen patients' choices and control. The Personal Option is a set of reforms to bring greater access, including