Author: @SoDakCampaigns

Fighting The Flu Bug
A column by Gov. Dennis Daugaard: 

Last January, our most recent granddaughter, Greta, was born. She joined her sister, Stella, and has two cousins, Henry and Elizabeth. Linda and I love to spend time with our grandchildren, when we can, and we want them all to be happy and healthy. As one way to help insure that, Linda and I received our flu vaccination this past week. It’s something we do every fall to make sure we protect our health and that of our grandchildren.

This year I’m encouraging all South Dakotans to help stop the flu bug by getting a flu vaccination. The flu is nothing to sniff at. Last year was South Dakota’s deadliest flu season in modern surveillance history, with 1,703 lab-confirmed cases, 793 hospitalizations and 63 deaths.

Surveillance data shows that children account for a significant number of flu cases and related hospitalizations every year. They also help spread influenza in community settings like schools and child care centers. That’s why the state offers free flu vaccine for those who are between six months and 18 years old.

An annual flu vaccination is the single most important thing we can do to prevent the flu. And we need it every year because the flu virus changes every year. Flu vaccine, like any medical treatment, is not 100 percent effective. However, if you do get vaccinated and still catch the flu bug, that vaccine could mean a shorter and less severe illness.

South Dakotans have a history of taking care of themselves when it comes to vaccination. We have some of the highest childhood vaccination levels in the nation and I’m proud to say that our overall flu vaccination rates are also among the best. Last season 59.6 percent of us got vaccinated for the flu, the highest rate in the nation for the second season in a row. In fact, South Dakota had the nation’s highest flu vaccination rate for four of the last five seasons.

The doctors, nurses and other providers who work hard every year to ensure people get vaccinated can rightly be pleased that South Dakota’s coverage rates lead the nation. But we recognize that there are still too many people who aren’t getting vaccinated.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the flu isn’t a serious illness. The headache, fever, chills, coughing and body aches can be very severe and for some people, can lead to complications like pneumonia that may require hospitalization.

The medical community recommends yearly flu vaccination for everyone over the age of six months. Vaccination is especially important for those who are at higher risk for flu complications – pregnant women, people over age 50, people with chronic medical conditions like heart disease and health care workers.

Infants are too young to be vaccinated, so we can best protect infants by getting vaccinated ourselves, especially if we have infants in our households. For your own health and the health of those you love, contact your local clinic today about getting vaccinated for the flu. Let’s all do what we can to stop the flu bug.

Learn more about what you can do to stop the flu at flu.sd.gov.

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This week brought me two great items for my political collection. One was sent by a friend, and I found the other on eBay.

The first one made me laugh, and I almost wanted to put this bumper sticker on my car because it was so funny. And I reiterate, Almost wanted to.

“Ridin’ with Biden.”  That’s a pretty good one in reference to the Draft Joe Biden movement.  The second is more serious, and more related to South Dakota politics:

It’s far from being in perfect shape, but this is an original litho (screen printed on metal) pin for Herseth for Governor. Not sure if it’s for Ralph (campaigns in ’58, ’60 & ’62) or Lars (’86), but it’s one I didn’t have in my collection. I suspect it was for Lars.

From Keloland:

Fort Pierre elementary school teacher Sarah Lutz has been named South Dakota’s 2016 Teacher of the Year.

Lutz is a third-grade teacher at Stanley County Elementary and a member of the school’s leadership team. She also serves as a volunteer coach for the Girls on the Run program, and is credited with developing family nights to promote parent involvement.

Read it all here.

And for our Republican readers, yes, you’ve heard that name before. Sara is married to Deputy State Auditor Jason Lutz.

(Jason’s a great guy, but Teacher of the Year is a pretty big deal. And I’m sure he’d agree!)

Congratulations, Sarah.

Paula Hawks 2015 q3 FEC

Paula Hawks’ FEC report is available on-line now, and it shows a few interesting things.

Out of that 63k she’s noting she raised, Hawks is in for $950. Tim Johnson’s South Dakota First Leadership PAC is in for 5k. Tom Daschle is in for $1000, and so is Herseth. Brendan Johnson is in for $500, Dale Larson of Brookings is in for $1000, SDDP Chair Ann Tornbers ig in for $700, and big spender Rick Weiland sent $250. There’s an exceedingly high proportion of unitemized contributions. Which is unusual. You also see itemized contributions from “Petty Cash” for $175, $708, and $125.

It looks to me as if she went to the Democrats’ well for start-up money, and fared worse than Matt Varilek did. The small group of Democrat loyalists dug deep, but there’s not a lot of breadth. And there’s no indication that she can continue to tap many of these same people indefinitely.

Anything you notice?

From KSFY, the Hawks campaign is claiming they’ve raised about 1/4 of what the Noem campaign managed to bring in during the same period:

Democratic state Rep. Paula Hawks has raised about $63,400 since launching her campaign to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem.

Federal reports released by Hawks’ campaign Thursday show the representative from Hartford had about $45,600 on hand at the end of this fundraising quarter, which ran from July through September.

and…

Campaign manager Zach Nistler says the campaign is pleased and will build on the numbers.

Read it here.

We don’t have the filing in hand yet, so there’s still a lot of questions. Arguably, it’s better than Corinna Robinson managed during her campaign, but it’s still less than 2/3 of what Matt Varilek was able to raise against Noem in his first quarter during Noem’s first contest as an incumbent.

What do you think?

As the Associated Press catches up with my reporting yesterday on this, from KELO:

Federal reports released by Noem’s campaign show the three-term Republican congresswoman raised more than $260,000 in the third fundraising quarter, which ran from July through September.

and..

Hawks is a two-term state representative from Hartford. So far she’s the only Democrat running. Her campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read it here.

“didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment”  is kind of the campaign equivalent of “mumble.. mumble…”   For someone who needs free press as much as Hawks does, I’m surprised she isn’t returning phone calls on this one.

That is, unless her fundraising is as disastrous as we expect it to be.

(Remember – “Corinna Light.”  We yet may be using that term.)

As I’d noted earlier, I’m speaking with the campaigns about their FEC Reports due today.

While Senator Thune is gearing up for 2016, Senator Rounds is spending more time establishing himself and building ties than staying in campaign mode.  I spoke with Rob Skjonsberg of the Senator’s staff, also who doubles as Senator Rounds’ assistant campaign treasurer. And Rob offered that they’re not being aggressive at this point, as they frankly needed a bit of a break:

Between the campaign and new leadership PAC – revenue was about $60,000 and we paid off the remaining campaign debt.  We’re thankful because we’ve been able to do that without being real aggressive.

We actually talked about this at the beginning of the summer – the constant political pressure to raise campaign contributions despite just getting hired and the critical work that needs to get done in the senate.

We’ve been in campaign mode for almost three years. I think all of us, including those who have been so generous to Mike over the years, appreciate the break.

Regardless of the office, we have the history and the network to be well funded when the time comes. Between now and then, he’s focused on this job not necessarily the next.

And there you have it.

Stay tuned. Still coming up, we’re still wondering if Paula Hawks has what it takes to be a real candidate.

Apparently there’s a war over Hospitals – specifically community Hospitals being waged in Congress right now.  H.R. 976 and H.R. 2513 are currently being floated, which would significantly modify current law with respect to self-referrals to physician-owned hospitals.

Under most laws and regulations in our health care system, physician self-referral is banned, but physician owners were using an exception (known commonly as the “whole hospital” exception), to get around these conflict of interest rules. The issue of self-referral to physician-owned hospitals, and the inherent conflict of interest it presents, is not a new issue.

These arrangements have been the subject of numerous bipartisan congressional hearings and analyses by independent and government researchers. In fact, the issue was first addressed by a statutory moratorium passed by Republican majorities, and enacted by President Bush, first in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and then in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

The data gathered over the last decade clearly showed that self-referral was creating an unlevel playing field, and threatened patient safety, as well as the health care safety net provided by full-service community hospitals, such as those found in many communities across the state.

These measures could potentially put hospitals in towns like Vermillion, Gettysburg, or Mobridge out of business, simply because it could break the back of the larger hospitals that own them.

In 2010, Congress passed a permanent but prospective ban on self-referral to physician-owned hospitals, providing grandfathered status for those existing hospitals with physician ownership or investment and a Medicare provider agreement in place as of December 31, 2010. Current law represents a compromise, which protects current physician ownership of hospital arrangements and allows these arrangements to grow where needed.

But now, opponents of this provision are seeking to repeal or amend this policy, despite the US Chamber of Commerce taking a strong position against the bills:

US Chamber 141121 Self-Referral Reid McConnell Boehner Pelosi

What do you think? Should physician owned hospitals be able to self-refer and cherry-pick patients? Or does that create an un-level playing field?

I’ve been pinging the campaigns over the FEC Reports that are due today. And while they’re still figuring up the rest, they were able to tell me that Senator Thune currently has 11.2 Million cash on hand for his upcoming election battle.

That’s an increase of $300,000 cash on hand over his last report of 10.9 million COH, but Thune is also running a campaign office at this point, so there is a slight drain on his finances as he’s accruing cash for a battle which increasingly looks as if it may never happen.

Here’s some nice props from Buzzfeed for our State’s Capital City. The popular website is featuring cities that made it on the list of locations in Monopoly’s “Here and Now” edition.

Bonus – it even slips a mention of the Cattleman’s Club in (the standard by which all state steakhouses are judged):

Read it all here.