Alternative Headline: Noem Hates Small Towns!
Congresswoman Kristi Noem's only achievement so far is following Speaker Boehner in holding a symbolic vote on repealing health care reform. She's awfully proud of keeping this promise to do nothing.
And thank goodness it does nothing. If Noem and her leaders really could repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, they would drive Castlewood and other rural South Dakota towns into an abyss of job loss and population flight:
Chuck Hassebrook, Executive Director of the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Nebraska, says rising health care costs could drive more people off the land and away from small towns.
"It's almost forcing people to give up self-employment and try to find a job that provides insurance, because the rates are so high for an individual to go into the market and buy health insurance. I think that self-employed Americans, which we have so many of in rural America, are among the greatest beneficiaries of health reform" [Jerry Oster, "Rural Leader: Health Care Repeal Would Hit Much of SD Hard," Public News Service, 2011.02.07]
...and don't forget: repeal would increase taxes:
[Hassebrook]: "Beginning in 2014, farmers and small business people will start getting tax credits for the cost of their health insurance. Taking those away is going to be a tax increase" [Oster/PNS, 2011].
Let farmers and rural America decline, increase taxes... gee, Rep. Noem really is starting to sound like Reagan.
I thought the courts we deciding the issue for us. We might know sometime next year if it is constitutional or not.
Cory, do you really think Kristi Noem hates small towns?
Actions speak louder than words, Stan At the very least, Noem has not thought past the talking points handed to her to analyze the very real economic impacts of high for-profit health insurance prices in rural America.