Expanding healthcare is on the agenda yet again at the Montana Legislature Friday.
Republican Representative Art Wittich of Bozeman is carrying House Bill 582, and says it’s a part of the Republicans' alternative plans to the governor’s Medicaid expansion.
Wittich's bill would create a $35 million fund for hospitals and healthcare providers to recover costs of responding to major emergencies, like car wrecks and disease.
"People would come into the emergency room, have a major medical problem, would have to treat them, and would have to basically recover that cost through people who had higher insurance rates."
The bill would also set up a study of how money is spent in the hospital system.
Opponents argue that this plan would take too much state money and doesn’t cover people who need it. Many of those opponents would rather use federal money from the Affordable Care Act to cover about 70,000 Montanans.
