ALERT! Montana Tried Gutting Medicaid-It's An Evil Disaster [View all]

https://ryandbusse.substack.com/p/alert-montana-tried-gutting-medicaid

We don’t have to guess what will happen if the Republicans enact the just-passed House budget that will kick more than 10 million people off healthcare.1 Montana Republicans have already run this experiment, and the nation would be very well served to learn from our disaster.

The parallels of our experience in Montana are frighteningly similar to the prospect now facing our nation. Like Donald Trump and many current Republican U.S. House Members, Montana Governor Greg Gianforte is a very wealthy man who has never hidden his religiously rigid opposition to government programs that benefit anyone less fortunate than himself. Gianforte has never missed an opportunity to plainly admit the reasons; He wants tax breaks for people like him and believes everyone else is a freeloader. He’s even gone so far as to proudly appear with Grover Norquist, the anti-government crusader famous for demanding that all government services and programs should be strangled down small enough so that they could be finished off, or as Norquist says, easily “drowned in a bathtub.”2

Like the current Republican Majority in Congress, Gianforte detests programs that provide assistance, but also must deal with the problem of their popularity. Here in Montana, his predecessor, Democrat Steve Bullock, fought hard to expand Medicaid, eventually forming a celebrated bipartisan majority that expanded Medicaid in 2019. Not only was this the moral thing to do, but the financial advantage has also proven to be crystal clear. Covering more people with Medicaid saved money and grew the economy. A story in the Daily Montanan extensively quotes economist Bryce Ward on the many ways the expanded federal health coverage has cut expenses, boosted economic growth, and shored up hospitals across the state.

“In 2023, more than 52,000 adults went to the dentist for preventative screenings, which represents a 277% increase from the number of dental screenings provided in 2015. Moreover, screening for cholesterol increased by 405% since 2015.

The data suggests that more than 1,400 cases of cancer were averted, with breast cancer and colon cancer the top types. Other categories of care also increased. For example, hypertension treatment has risen by 312% since expansion; diabetes cases treated has risen 245%; and substance use disorder treatment has seen a 636% increase.

*snip*