‘The right thing to do’: Voters in deep red South Dakota approve Medicaid expansion

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‘The right thing to do’: Voters in deep red South Dakota approve Medicaid expansion
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‘The right thing to do’: Voters in deep red South Dakota approve Medicaid expansion
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Defying their right-wing political leaders, South Dakota voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment to expand the state’s Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act, a move that will extend public health insurance coverage to around 45,000 low-income people.

With Tuesday’s vote, which currently sits at 56% in favor of the amendment and 44% against, South Dakota is set to become the seventh state to expand Medicaid through a ballot measure, keeping the undefeated streak for Medicaid initiatives intact.

“We’re glad that South Dakota voters saw that helping our neighbors get healthcare is the right thing to do,” Dave Kapaska, a retired hospital executive and co-chair of the American Heart Association’s volunteer cabinet for Medicaid expansion, said in a statement sent out by South Dakotans Decide Healthcare, the group that led the ballot campaign.

Approval of the ballot measure came months after South Dakotans rejected a GOP-backed constitutional amendment that raised the threshold for passage of most ballot initiatives from a simple majority to 60%, which would have spelled defeat for Medicaid expansion.

Prior to Tuesday, South Dakota was among the dozen Republican-controlled states that refused to expand Medicaid coverage under the ACA, depriving millions of people across the U.S. of lifesaving care. Under current South Dakota law, as Vox‘s Dylan Scott explained Wednesday, “childless adults of working age cannot qualify for coverage at all.”

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