With Montana's 2015 Legislature nearing the midpoint, health care organizations in Billings are monitoring bills to provide coverage for uninsured Montanans, funding for mental health services and immunization regulations.

Billings Clinic, St. Vincent Healthcare and RiverStone Health representatives are watching closely the effort to expand Medicaid to as many as 70,000 Montanans.

"The problem has been spelled out that its roughly 70,000 Montanans who are eligible, so theyre going uncovered," said Mike Foster, regional director of advocacy for St. Vincent Healthcare. "We try to position ourselves as being a strong proponent of finding a way that works so we can get that coverage."

Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock proposed a plan to accept about $700 million in federal funds that would expand Medicaid a federal program that provides health insurance to seniors and low-income citizensto as many as 70,000 residents whose income is up to 138 percent of the national poverty level.

Republicans in Helena, however, largely oppose the plan and argue that Medicaid coverage shouldn't go to childless, able-bodied adults. Nancy Ballance's House Bill 455, which would revise Medicaid laws to cover parents who earn up to 100 percent of the federal poverty level, 700 poor and disabled people already lined up for spots in home care and a handful of military veterans who don't get other forms of coverage.

That plan, they say, would cost about $32 million and would extend coverage to another 10,000 to 15,000 Montanans.

Representatives from Billings-area health organizations generally said they prefer Bullock's proposal,House Bill 249, which will be presented by Democratic Rep. Pat Noonan of Ramsay on March 6 before the House Human Services Committee.

"It's an opportunity for a healthier, more prosperous Montana," said Barbara Schneeman, RiverStone's director of communications and advocacy. "Many of the people who would be eligible for the expansion would be the working poor, and they often don't have health coverage or sick leave. When they get sick, they're unable to work, they don't get paid."

More than half of the patients seen in Montana community health centers are uninsured, Schneeman said, and about 8,000 people who received care at RiverStone last year would be eligible for coverage under the expansion.

JJ Carmody, Billings Clinic's director of reimbursement, and Heidi Duncan, the clinic's director of health policy, said that both plans use federal Medicaid money and that Montana hospitals have contributed a notable amount of money into the federal dollars that would end up back in Montana.

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Billings health care providers watching Medicaid expansion closely