Strong case for maintaining Medicaid expansion

State Representatives Sue Malek and Marilyn Ryan, Missoulian

Montana legislators have fewer than 40 legislative days to decide whether we build on our unique, Montana-made Medicaid expansion program, or enact harmful changes that undermine the mission of Medicaid and undo gains in health, employment and the economy.

Medicaid expansion represents the best of what the Montana legislature has accomplished. Working together in 2015, legislators reached a bipartisan compromise and passed Medicaid expansion. This program provides healthcare coverage for 96,000 Montanans, creates $350 million in annual personal income, and resulted in 6,000 new jobs in our state.

Medicaid is a great deal. Low-income Montanans, the vast majority of whom are working or starting small businesses, will lose help paying for medical insurance without the program. This program means Montanans can keep working toward better futures.

Montana hospitals help pay for the costs of the program. Low-income Montanans pay premiums for their coverage. Federal assistance to states for this program started at 100 percent and will not drop below 90 percent because Congress agreed Medicaid expansion helps people move out and stay out of costly welfare programs.

Medicaid expansion keeps rural communities alive. Sixty percent of Montanans with access to health care through Medicaid live outside the seven most populous counties. Since passing Medicaid expansion, not a single rural hospital has closed in Montana. Nationwide, states that have passed Medicaid expansion have reduced rural hospital closures by 84 percent compared to those states that have not enacted the program.

Healthy Montanans work. Our unique, Montana-made Medicaid expansion program includes HELP-Link, which has provided more than 29,000 Montanans with workforce training. As a result, 6 percent Montana Medicaid expansion enrollees obtained new and better jobs. Seven in 10 Montanans with health coverage under Medicaid expansion are employed. Those not employed are disabled, in school or providing care for a loved one.

Medicaid expansion recipients have “skin-in-the-game.” Montanans whose incomes are greater than 50 percent of poverty pay 2 percent of their annual incomes to help cover the costs. To date, more than 7,000 Montanans have lost access to health care because of failure to pay premiums. Our hope is that the number of Montanans losing health coverage will go down not increase.

Increased access to preventive care and mental health treatment. Medicaid expansion reduced Montana’s uninsured rate from 20 percent to 7 percent and provides a path to better health through essential health services. Since 2016, more than 35,000 Montanans have received mental health treatment because of Medicaid expansion.

Tell your Montana senator and representative to vote “no” on House Bill 658. The bill sponsors contend it keeps our Medicaid expansion program, although its stated goal is to push thousands of Montanans out of the program and its design will make that happen. Tell your representatives to vote “yes” to continue our highly successful current Medicaid expansion program. Vote “yes” for House Bill 425!