Jason Small, John Esp: Legislature’s well being care funding

The 2023 Legislature made unprecedented investments in all three of these areas that collectively will positively affect households in each nook of our state.

Not solely did we each vote for all of those reforms, however considered one of us (Sen. Jason Small) sponsored the diabetes laws. The opposite (Sen. John Esp) chaired the Senate’s influential Finance and Claims Committee and shepherded the opposite payments by means of the Senate because the Senate sponsor of the laws. Right here’s the lowdown on what these new legal guidelines do.

Senate Invoice 340 by Sen. Small is a simple but game-changing coverage for Montanans who want insulin and have personal medical insurance protection. The invoice places an higher restrict on what Montanans need to pay out-of-pocket for his or her insulin: $35 per 30 days. Going ahead, when you purchase your personal medical insurance or get your medical insurance out of your employer and also you want insulin, you’ll solely need to pay, at most, $35 for a 30-day provide of insulin, no matter how a lot or what kind of insulin you might be prescribed.

This can be a life-changing, and for some, probably life-saving change to their medical insurance protection.

Home Invoice 872, sponsored by Flathead Republican Rep. Bob Keenan, makes a generational funding into psychological well being care. Over the following a number of years that laws will spend $300 million of Montana’s funds surplus to reform and revamp our state’s behavioral well being care system. The cash will likely be spent on investments to stabilize and enhance psychological well being companies throughout the state. HB 872 is the most important funding in behavioral well being care in Montana historical past.

Home Invoice 2, sponsored by Conrad Republican Rep. Llew Jones, is the state’s major funds invoice for the following two years. The Legislature allotted $6.2 million in state and federal funding in HB 2 to considerably increase postpartum well being look after moms on the state’s Medicaid program. This extra funding expands postpartum medical protection — from solely 60 days to a full 12 months — for over 1,000 moms. This pro-family coverage demonstrates Montana Republicans’ dedication to moms and their kids, together with those that don’t have employer medical insurance and may’t afford their very own personal medical insurance.

No matter whether or not a Montana household lives within the west or east facet of the state, on an Indian reservation, in a giant city or on a rural plot of land miles from the closest neighbor, all have struggled with diabetes, psychological well being, or accessing pregnancy-related well being care at one level or one other.

As the brand new insurance policies handed by the 2023 Legislature take impact, all of these difficulties simply obtained simpler and extra inexpensive for households to handle.