HELENA, Mont. – Tens of thousands of Montanans are counting on lawmakers to protect their access to health care as business convenes this week in the state capitol.
Montana’s Medicaid expansion is set to expire on June 30, 2025, if not extended. Its reauthorization is a crucial agenda item for legislators and a priority for the many Montanans who have been able to access quality, affordable health insurance through Medicaid. For nearly a decade since it was first authorized, Medicaid expansion has proven successful in ensuring our residents can focus on raising healthy and happy families, providing health coverage needed for Montanans to have the best chance to avoid, detect and defeat cancer. Nearly 80% of those using Medicaid are employed and six in 10 Montana businesses have employees who use Medicaid. Only 40% of state employers provide health insurance as part of their benefits package.
Failure to reauthorize expansion under Montana Medicaid would eliminate access to quality, comprehensive health care from as many as 90,000 hard-working residents and destabilize the state’s medical infrastructure. States like Wyoming, Wisconsin and Alabama have yet to expand Medicaid and have experienced hospital closures and elimination of critical services, such as obstetrics and oncology. Rural services are hit particularly hard in these states and residents in more remote settings are forced to travel hours for basic care and face dire consequences when trauma or specialty care is required. Montana, meanwhile, has not seen a hospital closure since the onset of the program and has benefitted from 7,500 new jobs and $475 million in new personal income.
“Medicaid expansion has been a massive success for the state from both a health and financial perspective,” American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network Montana Government Relations Director Denver Henderson said. “We look forward to meeting with every state lawmaker, providing the evidence of this success and discussing the damage that would be done if Montanans were stripped of these health benefits.”
ACS CAN advocates will also urge lawmakers to increase funding for tobacco cessation and prevention programs by $4.5 million annually, bringing the state total to $10.24 million. This increase would help every Montanan reduce tobacco use and addiction, leading to fewer deaths and suffering from tobacco-related diseases like cancer. Montana teens are particularly at risk as they use tobacco at more than double the national average.
“Due to high rates of youth tobacco use in recent years, largely due to skyrocketing rates of e-cigarette use, the decades of progress that has been made in reducing tobacco use rates in youth is now in jeopardy,” Henderson said. “A well-funded, fact-based tobacco control program is needed to counteract the $29.1 million per year that tobacco companies are spending on marketing their deadly and addictive products in Montana. As Big Tobacco works hard to addict future generations with e-cigarettes and other tobacco products, the need for funding for tobacco prevention programs has never been greater.”
ACS CAN encourages individuals, businesses and organizations that are interested in getting involved in the fight against cancer to visit https://www.fightcancer.org/states/montana
