
Montana Healthcare Foundation Fully Supports Medicaid Expansion
Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - The Montana Healthcare Foundation fully supports Medicaid Expansion in Montana.
I spoke to the Montana Healthcare Foundation CEO Aaron Wernham this week about his organization’s full support for Medicaid expansion.
MHCF Fully Supports Medicaid Expansion in Montana
“Since Montana decided to extend coverage in Medicaid to low-income adults back in 2016 through the bipartisan HELP act, Montana Healthcare Foundation has really been studying the results of this program,” began Wernham. “We're here to improve the health of Montanans, and we recognize insurance coverage is an important piece of that. So we've just been studying Medicaid claims and economic data, what this program does for the state, and what it costs.”
Wernham explained why the program is being examined so closely in this legislative session.
“When the legislature first passed the HELP Act back in 2016 they put a time limit on it, because I think they really wanted to have a chance to come back and look at what the program was achieving,” he said. “They did that in 2019 and when they reauthorized it, then again, with another bipartisan action by the legislature and governor, they decided to put a sunset on it for this year.”
Wernham Explained Why Medicaid Expansion is Necessary
Wernham said renewing Medicaid in Montana is absolutely necessary.
“We do find that this is a really beneficial program, both for health and for the economy,” he said. “For the fifth year running, we found there's evidence it's improving health outcomes. First of all, people getting a lot more wellness visits and important pieces of that, such as cancer screenings. And as we would expect, we're seeing some evidence that actually improves outcomes. So we do see declining use of ER and declining hospitalization rates as people are on the program for a couple of years, and that's been true, really, over the last five years that we've been running that analysis.”
He Explained What Medicaid Expansion Brings to the Table
Wernham said the entire Montana healthcare system benefits from what Medicaid brings to the table.
“This year we also studied the impacts of this program on the health care system, and rural Montana has benefited a lot,” he said. “More than half of the people on the program are out in rural areas and that actually benefits the hospitals there. Nationally, we've seen a wave of small hospital closures much more likely in non-expansion states. It happens much more commonly in states that haven't expanded Medicaid.”
The state legislature is looking closely at whether the Medicaid program should remain in Montana.
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