Schweitzer: State employee clinics could eventually handle Medicaid expansion

Gazette State Bureau ^ | 5/30/12 | MIKE DENNISON

[Nachum]

HELENA — If the Schweitzer administration’s plan for a low-cost health clinic for state employees gets off the ground this year, it could be expanded later to serve University System employees and maybe even Medicaid patients, Gov. Brian Schweitzer said last week.

“Now we’re talking about one-third to 40 percent of all the people in Montana who would be in this pool,” he said in an interview. “We’re going to get more extensive health care and it will be less costly.”

But if the long-term plan pans out, it will have to be without Schweitzer as governor. His final term expires in January, because term limits prevent him from running for re-election.

The administration is asking for bids from potential clinic operators to set up an initial Helena clinic, which would serve the area’s 16,000 state workers and their dependents who are covered by the state-employee health plan.

Bids are due April 9, and at a pre-bid conference last week, more than two dozen people attended, including representatives of Billings Clinic, St. Peter’s Hospital in Helena, Benefis Hospital in Great Falls, health-benefit manager Employee Benefit Management Services of Billings, the Cooperative Health Center in Helena and others.

Schweitzer hopes to award the contract this year and have the clinic operating by December, weeks before he leaves office.

The contract for the clinic, funded by the state-employee health plan, would run through 2015. The governor said he doesn’t need legislative approval to execute the contract.

When asked how future administrations and legislatures might react to the clinic, Schweitzer said he sees no reason why they wouldn’t embrace it, for it will save the state money over the long run.

[Nachum]

Not a bad idea. Send all the indigent to the same clinics public employees use- especially the politicians.

[txrefugee]

Good grief...33-40% of the population of Montana are state employees???
It must be hard for taxpayers in the private sector to pull that gravy train.

[blueunicorn6]

He probably thought of this when he was sitting in one of the cabins he built or bought on his governor’s salary.

[blueunicorn6]

Good old Lee Enterprises aiding and abetting Brian. He can’t find that $23 million that his Adjutant General lost. And now the Adjutant General is running as a Democrat for Lieutenant Governor.

[tinamina]

Good grief...33-40% of the population of Montana are state employees???

I don’t think so, the governor was talking about including the Medicaid folks along with the State employees into this clinic plan.

My question, having been a Montana resident lately and knowing how spread out the population is, would Medicaid patients from say Lewistown have to travel 200 miles to Helena to receive treatment at this clinic?

It is currently very hard to get a doctor to see you in these small towns because there aren’t enough of them and they don’t accept new patients. So if you are sick and don’t have a doctor you go to the ER. It’s the only option.