A reality based independent journal of observation & analysis, serving the Flathead Valley & Montana since 2006. © James Conner.
Senate Bill 405, so-called “moderate Republican” Sen. Ed Buttrey’s Medicaid expansion bill was blasted 28–22 from the Senate’s finance and claims committee just after lunch today with the support of all of the Senate’s 21 Democrats, but just seven of the chamber’s 29 Republicans.
SB-405 goes to its second reading on the Senate’s floor Friday, 27 March. The session starts at 1300 MDT. SB-405 is the last bill on the second reading agenda.
The unanimous Democratic support for the blast is proof that Gov. Bullock and the Democratic Party have embraced the perverse axiom that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many. In this case, the few are the up to 70,000 Montanans who might be helped by SB-405, and the many are the 165,600 poorer people already on Medicaid and CHIP whose incomes will be reduced two percent by SB-405.
That’s right. The people most down and out will have their piggy banks robbed to help people who are not as poor. It’s an economically regressive policy that’s the inverse of everything Democrats say they stand for. But the poorest of the poor are the least likely to vote, so picking their pockets won’t result in payback at the polls.
The Republicans have dark money. With this sellout of the poor, the Democrats have dark souls.