By Rep. Nancy Ballance, HD87, Hamilton
The recent letter to the editor regarding Medicaid Expansion is fraught with misinformation that must not go unanswered.
Medicaid expansion DID NOT increase by a single person the number of women eligible for taxpayer-funded abortion in Montana. Any woman covered under Medicaid Expansion is already covered under the traditional, federal Medicaid program. Manzella and her supporters must know that U.S. Senators and Congressmen vote on federal programs, state legislators do not. If Manzella and her supporters are arguing to repeal federal Medicaid, they should write their congressman.
The letter writers cite as an authority a nefarious Political Action Committee, “Doctors for Healthy Montana,” which is comprised of one physician (whose ideas about modern medicine are, to say the least, unorthodox) and three legislators whose chief motivation seems to be gaining political power in the upcoming session. They should be dismissed outright.
The letter also cited the Chief Legal Counsel for the Montana Family Foundation. Sadly, this once revered defender of the unborn, has demeaned itself by allowing its chief counsel to produce “legal” memoranda that are divorced from the law and are obvious attempts at obfuscation, a conclusion that any unbiased person would reach after carefully reading both her June 2019 and April 2020 memos.
A few courageous, conservative Republicans overcame the opposition of Democrats to deliver a healthcare solution grounded by conservative principles and responsive to today’s needs of Montana’s low-income workers, small businesses, and rural hospitals.