Friday,  March 7, 2014 • Vol. 16--No. 234 • 18 of 30

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so the extra state and federal money could be spent on an expanded Medicaid program, he said.
• House Minority Leader Bernie Hunhoff, D-Yankton, said the Legislature should just go ahead and approve a full expansion of Medicaid to cover everyone up to 138 percent of the poverty level. Such an expansion would improve health care for up to 48,000 people, many of whom now delay getting medical care until they are so sick they go to hospital emergency rooms, he said.
• Hunhoff said South Dakota will eventually expand Medicaid. He said Democrats will propose putting money to cover a Medicaid expansion in the state budget that will be passed next week.
• "It's just such a short-sighted and foolish mistake not to have done it last year or today," Hunhoff said.
• Senate Minority Leader Jason Frerichs, D-Wilmot, said Democratic lawmakers will keep working with federal officials to find agreement on a partial expansion.
• "We're not giving up," Frerichs said.
• South Dakota's Medicaid program now covers about 116,000 children, adults and disabled people. The full expanded eligibility would add an estimated 48,000 people, mostly adults without children.
• People earning up to 138 percent of the poverty level -- about $16,000 for a single person or $33,000 for a family of four -- would be covered by a full expansion. The federal government would fully cover those added to Medicaid rolls through 2016, and the state's contribution would rise in stages to 10 percent of the costs by 2020.
• An expansion to 100 percent of the poverty level would cover a single person earning up to about $11,700 and a family of four earning $23,850.
• Daugaard said he hopes people earning between 100 percent and 138 percent of the poverty level will sign up for private insurance through the exchange created in the health care law. The federal subsidies mean those people would pay very little for that insurance, he said.
• Rave said Republicans want a Medicaid expansion to help people who are working but cannot afford insurance.
• "The working poor, that's who we're looking at," he said. "We're really focusing on the adults that are struggling to make it and obviously have no capacity to buy health insurance."

• Man gets 18 months in prison in sexual abuse case
• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- Federal authorities say a southern South Dakota man accused of sexually abusing a minor has been sentenced to 18 months in

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