Still Waiting for South Dakota Medicaid Numbers to Align
Medicaid Expansion in South Dakota has been on the back burner since the conclusion of the Legislative Session. Very soon the topic should move to the forefront.
Governor Dennis Daugaard proposed that more people could be covered by Medicaid in the Rushmore State if Federal policy changes would reimburse states such as South Dakota that provide services to IHS eligible Native Americans.
At the moment Daugaard says IHS has other pressing matters.
“The fly in the soup right now is IHS is distracted by the problems that they’ve got in Rosebud and Pine Ridge. Those hospitals are under suspension because of their failure to measure up to standards. It’s really hard to get them to sit down and deal with some of these other things because they are in more of a crisis situation.”
However once those items are fixed, Daugaard says the pathway should become more clear.
“I’m optimistic that we will know whether the math works within the next six weeks or so. We’ll be able to make our best judgement on those math questions and those dollar numbers and the timing of those.”
Once the number challenge is cleared Daugaard could call for a special session as early as June or July. Without a special session, the issue would remain unsolved until 2017.
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