Montana Senate passes Medicaid expansion

With the transmittal deadline for bills with money attached to them approaching, the Montana Senate passed the last remaining Medicaid expansion bill of the session on a preliminary vote.

Senate Bill 405, sponsored by Sen. Ed Buttrey, R-Great Falls, accepts federal money available under the Affordable Care Act to expand Medicaid coverage to people earning up to 138 percent of the poverty level, estimated to be as many as 70,000 additional people.

The bill arrived at the Legislature late in the session, after the governor’s bill to do the same thing failed, as did a group of other Republican-backed Medicaid bills that would have covered fewer people.

Buttrey’s bill - also known as the Health and Economic Livelihood Partnership (HELP) Act - asks those receiving coverage to pay small premiums, and encourages them to take part in a job training program, which Buttrey said will help them find a “path out of poverty.”

“What we offer in the bill is not an entitlement, but an opportunity,” Buttrey said on the Senate floor last week.

Opponents of the bill tried to amend it, but a group of moderate Republicans and all Democrats voted down each amendment.

Sen. Matt Rosendale, R-Glendive, said the bill was merely the “implementation of Obamacare,” and that it had been given special treatment compared to other bills that have come through the Senate.

He said it was drafted by people outside the Capitol, and that it was brought to the floor through procedural maneuvering, since the bill was referred from one committee to another, and skipped executive action in its second committee.

“This bill has been shielded from the typical vetting process,” Rosendale said.

In the end, the coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans held and the bill passed 28-22.