Power Play

Lots of political gamesmanship going on, with Medicaid Expansion hanging in the balance. 

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Our first advocacy letters!

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Our advocacy group at Holy Spirit has just finished the first batch of letters to legislators (and many thanks to Carla Mettling for birddogging this). These letters focus on restoring cuts to case management for the mentally ill and developmentally disabled. They are addressed to the six majority members of the Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, which is considering the governor's budget proposal for the Department of Public Health and Human Services (DPHHS) for about the next month. Public hearings on the budget for the agency departments most concerned with case management will be held this coming Monday and Tuesday (Jan. 21-22, Developmental Services Division) and next Monday (Jan. 28, Addictive and Mental Disorders Division) in Room 102 of the Capitol, between 8 a.m. and noon. Although the six letters are similar in approach, each was written by a member of Holy Spirit in his or her own voice. Here is just one letter, followed by the different...
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Why Medicaid Expansion is critical for rural Montanans

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The following letter was written by HSP parishioner Glenn Hladek: I am writing in support of Medicaid Expansion in Montana.  I am not arguing the moral imperative of health care as a right for all citizens of Montana.  Rather I am writing in support of maintaining a Montana way of life.  We are a rural state, we are an agricultural state, we are a ranching and farming state.  Without Medicaid expansion I am worried that this way of life will disappear.  Just as small communities depend upon schools, they depend upon readily-accessible health care.  Without the ability to educate and to provide health care for their families, I fear a forced migration from rural communities to urban cities. Of the 216,000 Montanans who access health care coverage through Medicaid, nearly half are children in Healthy Montana Kids program.  As of May 2017, 95,000 Montanans have enrolled in Montana's Medicaid expansion plan.  Of these individuals, nearly 48% ...
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Enrollees Could be Cut by 50 Percent

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