New Study Shows Huge Benefits from Montana Medicaid

Hours before a House committee was set to vote on competing bills to extend Montana Medicaid, a new study commissioned by Montana hospitals indicates even larger economic benefits for the state in the past two-and-a-half years. Among the findings:
• The expansion has led to an additional $2 billion of economic activity in Montana, using a common economic multiplier effect. It supported or created an additional 9,700 jobs during that time period and nearly $800 million of associated wages.
• In fiscal 2017, about 8 percent of Montana’s population was covered by Medicaid expansion — about the same as Washington and Colorado, but less than Oregon (10.8 percent) and more than North Dakota (2.7 percent). South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah did not have expanded Medicaid that year.
• Montana’s rate of people without health insurance dropped 56 percent from 2013 to 2016, in large part because of Medicaid expansion. The only other state in the region with a higher percentage drop was Oregon, at 58 percent.

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