Big Wins in Week 3: AARP SD Defeats Benefit Cuts and Protects Medicaid Expansion

Here we are at the completion of Week 3 of the 2026 South Dakota Legislative Session!

It was a big week for AARP South Dakota, with key victories and a chance to highlight our amazing volunteers - both in person and through online action. 

Senate Bill 6 -Unemployment Benefits
AARP South Dakota testified against Senate Bill 6 (SB 6), which would have reduced the maximum duration of unemployment benefits from 26 weeks to 22 weeks. The bill was successfully defeated by the Senate Commerce and Energy Committee on an 8-1 vote.

SB 6 would have had a detrimental impact on older workers in our state.

Older workers face disproportionately high rates of long-term unemployment. Workers aged 55 and older consistently remain unemployed longer than their younger counterparts. During economic downturns, older job seekers can be unemployed twice as long as younger workers. Cutting the number of benefit weeks could have left many older South Dakotans exhausting their support long before they could realistically secure new employment.

Reemployment assistance is a modest but essential bridge that helps workers stay afloat while they search for their next job. SB 6 would have removed that bridge too soon, especially for older adults who experience longer job searches through no fault of their own.

HJR 5002 – Medicaid Expansion
AARP South Dakota testified against House Joint Resolution 5002 (HJR 5002), which would have placed a question on the 2026 ballot asking voters to repeal Medicaid expansion.

The bill passed in the House State Affairs Committee on an 8-4 vote on Wednesday, but was successfully defeated on the House of Representatives floor on a 39-27 vote!

Thank you to the more than 200 AARP South Dakota advocates who took the time to contact legislators urging a NO vote and honoring the will of South Dakota voters!

An overwhelming majority of South Dakota voters passed Amendment D in November 2022, extending health care coverage to thousands of their friends and neighbors who fell into a coverage gap – either working for an employer that did not provide health insurance or earning too little to afford it.

Repealing Medicaid expansion could leave thousands of South Dakotans without coverage for needed preventive and chronic care services, potentially resulting in deteriorating health conditions that could require costly, uncompensated emergency room use or inpatient hospitalizations. 

The vast majority of adults enrolled in Medicaid are working, caregiving, in school or suffering from illness or disability. Without the access to care that Medicaid expansion provides, those who cannot afford care pay in a human toll – not being able to fill needed prescriptions, plunging into debt and bankruptcy due to health care costs and, sadly, dying from diseases that are treatable if discovered early.

AARP South Dakota has continually pushed for the state to maintain a straightforward Medicaid expansion, and efforts such as HJR 5002 only serve to divert attention from pursuing a lasting solution to the state’s coverage gap.

Again, THANK YOU for sending your messages to our lawmakers. As you can see, your voice makes a difference!

AARP SD’s Day at the Capitol
On Wednesday of this week, the members of our Volunteer Executive Council got up early in the morning to hear the House State Affairs debate on HRJ 5002 (Medicaid Expansion) and watched that committee vote to send it to the full House of Representatives.

That certainly gave all of the volunteers attending this year’s Lobby Day something to visit with their lawmakers about during the day!
Nearly 60 volunteers from around the state participated in Wednesday’s Lobby Day, which included attending other committee hearings during the morning and hosting a lunch with legislators in the Rotunda – one of the most highly-regarded lunches of the entire session! During lunch, the group had a chance to visit with Governor Larry Rhoden and Attorney General Marty Jackley and take a group picture. In the afternoon, the volunteers visited the House and Senate galleries to listen to some of each chamber’s floor debate before heading back home to their communities.

This is an important annual event that brings volunteers to Pierre for face-to-face interaction with lawmakers. They show up in their AARP SD red vests and make their presence known in the State Capitol as they advocate for issues important to South Dakotans 50-plus and their families.

We’re grateful to the volunteers who were able to make the trip to Pierre, but we are also grateful to each of you who read our weekly updates and quickly jump in to take action when we send out alerts on important bills. The stories and experiences you share with legislators are extremely valuable to our advocacy efforts.

It’s been an eventful legislative session so far, and we’re not even at the halfway mark yet, so please stay connected…we have more important work to do!

COMING NEXT WEEK:  Debate on Senate Bill 98 – Cryptocurrency ATMs
AARP South Dakota is supporting Senate Bill 98 (SB 98), which proposes to add safeguards around cryptocurrency ATMs in our state to reduce virtual currency kiosk fraud. The bill would require posted fraud warnings, daily transaction limits, receipts with relevant transactional information, cryptocurrency ATM licensing and the refund of transaction fees for those transactions related to fraud.

It is scheduled to be heard on Tuesday, February 3, in the Senate Commerce and Energy Committee. If you’re not signed up for our advocacy alerts, you can sign up here so that you’ll have a chance to send a message to those committee members urging a YES vote on this bill.