Hamilton Representative Talks Montana Health Reform, Delivering Health Services Statewide

Representative Ron Ehli with House District 86 near Hamilton is talking about Montana health reforms. Ehli sits on a bipartisan interim committee where they discuss different topics, in particular, “What’s the best way to deliver mental health services across the state?”

"The message comes out of the interim committee that I was on and over the last 18 months we've been working on how to better deliver mental health services across the state," Ehli said. "The focus of the committee was initially about state institutions or how mental health relates to them."

Ehli said the committee has to now find a different path to deliver mental health care in the local community and take the burden off of state institutions. His solution, he says, is crisis intervention.

"We've got seven bills coming out of this interim committee, all focused on taking care back to the communities. The jist of what I'm going to present of the three bills I'm carrying are pushing more towards crisis intervention," Ehli said. "In other words, it works on the prevention side: If we can prevent people from going in to crisis, or into a higher level of crisis and avoid that transport to Montana State Hospital...If we can do that at a local level, then we want to push that direction."

Ehli said the bills will bring money into new programs that enable communities to build new crisis centers or start programs within current crisis centers.