Health care

Medicaid expansion is one vote away from the governor's desk. The program gives 75,000 low-income Montanans access to health care. A bill that would maintain the state’s program passed a key vote in the Senate Thursday.

Around 66,000 Montanans rely on the federal marketplace to buy health insurance. Many get enhanced subsidies that Congress passed to help people afford premiums during the pandemic. They expire later this year. For some, premiums could be more than three times as expensive if the subsidies aren’t renewed.

Great Falls Republican House Rep. Ed Buttrey says ambulance providers across the state are in dire need of support.

The Montana Supreme Court this week sided with Helena’s St. Peter's Health in a lawsuit over the hospital’s termination of Dr. Tom Weiner. The Court unanimously ruled that the hospital was immune from liability because it followed proper procedure in an internal review process that culminated in Weiner’s firing in 2020.

The Montana Senate Tuesday voted down a bill that would phase out Montana’s Medicaid expansion program.

The Montana House of Representatives has passed a bill to renew the state’s health coverage program for low-income adults.

State health officials want to add more facilities for discharged state hospital patients who need support reentering their community.

Montana lawmakers advanced proposals to restrict health care and bathroom access for transgender residents.

Bills that would continue and end the state’s Medicaid expansion program are moving through the Legislature. More than a third of Fort Peck tribal members are enrolled in the program.

Montana will sign onto a proposed national settlement with Purdue Pharma and its owners, the Sackler family, for their role in sparking the opioid crisis.