Latest Medicaid expansion bill more costly than governor’s plan
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Hope everyone had a great Easter and it was wonderful to be home. House Bill 2, the budget, is up on the Senate floor this week and it will be interesting to see how much more spending can be crammed into it.
Shakespeare said, “What’s in a name. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Politicians sure think there is a lot in a name. Obamacare is the Affordable Care Act and it isn’t “affordable” by anyone’s standards, proponents or opponents.
We have the same thing in our state. The latest Medicaid expansion bill is called Montana Health and Economic Livelihood Partnership Act, HELP. That makes it sound good. It starts a new optional state program for jobs training, requires 14 new state employees, uses some Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) money and costs more for the third party administrators than the governor’s plan.
There is a poll in the Helena newspaper that asks if you are against dark money in politics. Everyone is against dark money. But this legislation, SB 289, was written by the governor, his political practices appointee and Sandy Welch. Yes, the same Sandy Welch that along with Senator Tutvedt received $22,000 dollars from the CSKT to defeat Republicans. You can check out Tribal minutes and the Commissioner of Political Practices website. All the Montanans for Responsible Leadership PAC money was spent on negative ads. They weren’t dark money, just negative ads.
Read SB 289 at leg.mt.gov. I call it the Bullock re-election bill. Every single democrat in the Montana legislature voted for this bill and it’s interesting that the same republican legislators that donated to that PAC and benefited from its negative spending did too. Even if you support our governor for re-election, you have to admit the system is rigged.
Governor Bullock is chair of the Democrat Governor’s Association. The DGA is a 527 tax-exempt political organization and that means they can receive unlimited corporative contributions. In fact, they donated $2.8 million to Montana JETPAC that worked to get Bullock elected in 2012.
Yes, both sides do this. But Republicans did not write SB 289 and they didn’t appoint the Commissioner of Political Practices. He is the one that will write the rules.
Here’s another fun fact: The state agencies must get the approval of the legislature if they build a building over 40,000 square feet. Guess how big the new Department of Natural Resources and Conservation building is? 39,085 square feet, not including the parking garage. Coincidence? There are many other examples; FWP purchased $200,000 worth of Sig Sauers to replace the M-14s and the Department of Labor bought 40 vehicles after we left in 2013. We got the cars put into the motor pool and I don’t know if we can stop the building.
It is hard to believe we have fires already, in late March. The Department of Natural Resources and Conservation has already mobilized 100 fire fighters. Let’s pray for a wet June.
Leave me a message at 406-444-4800 because my cell phone, 253-8766, is usually off. Email sen.janna.taylor@mt.gov. I am working for you.
