“That don’t make no sense.”
We thought of that line from O Brother, Where Art Thou? when South Dakota sent two Republicans to Congress and, on the same ballot, told the government to keep its hands off Obamacare.
Marty Jackley won the state’s only U.S. House seat with about 64 percent of the vote. Mike Rounds won another Senate term with about 60.5 percent. Then voters got to Amendment I, which would have let the state out of its constitutional obligation to provide expanded Medicaid if Washington’s share of the cost fell below 90 percent. South Dakota voted no. Candidate results · Amendment results
There’s a name for this particular strain of American politics. MAGA on the outside, self-centered socialist on the inside. The red hat says Washington spends too much. The ballot says Washington had better keep picking up 90 percent of the tab.
We’re using socialist the way a campaign ad uses it. Medicaid is a public insurance program. But if the program had been on somebody else’s ballot, we can practically hear the voice-over. Government-run health care. More federal spending. A handout paid for by hardworking taxpayers. Put it on our ballot, where it helps our sister get her prescriptions and keeps money coming into the hospital we’d rather have close by, and suddenly the voice-over sounds like it ought to mind its own business.
South Dakotans voted to expand Medicaid in 2022. Four years later, they had a chance to give the state an escape hatch if Congress changed the deal. They kept the obligation. So give them credit for knowing exactly what they wanted when the question was put to them plainly. The amusing part is how much plainer the question gets when the clinic is down the road. Medicaid expansion history · Amendment I coverage
Of course, the returns can’t tell us how many people voted Republican and voted to keep Medicaid expansion. But the instructions South Dakota handed its delegation are there for anybody to read. Go to Washington. Fight big government. And if you get anywhere near our piece of it, remember what we told you a few lines down.
Maybe the man in the movie had it wrong. It makes perfect sense once you know whose doctor’s appointment we’re talking about.
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