Here’s what happens if the legislature refuses to accept Medicaid expansion in Montana:
Only one group benefits from rejecting Expanded Medicaid — the right wing ideologues who oppose government funded health care on principle; and in many cases, not just government funded health care but also any kind of health insurance. They seek the satisfaction of having their ideology prevail, and seem unmoved by the harm caused by denying their fellow human beings access to affordable health care.
Approximately half of the legislators in each house of the Montana Legislature, Republicans all, belong to the anti-expansion caucus. Approximately a dozen GOP house members who sometimes join Democrats to defeat nutball measures such as HB-303, Rep. Krayton Kerns’ (R-Laurel) “sheriff’s bill,” hold the balance of power in that chamber. Slightly less than half that number of similarly moderate (moderate in a relative, not absolute, sense) Republicans hold the balance of power in the senate.
These swing vote GOP pragmatists have two options for expanding Medicaid:
I suspect brinksmanship and other games will hold expanding Medicaid in Montana hostage until late in the session. And it’s possible the impasse won’t be resolved even then, leaving the matter to be concluded in a special session this summer.
It’s to no one’s credit that this issue remains unresolved. Meanwhile, the legislature is busy fooling with raw milk, roadkill, arrows with lighted nocks, tying the right to vote to property ownership, and proposals for letting undertakers dispose of Dad’s remains by dissolving them in pressurized hot lye.