Commissioners send letter in support of proposed Medicaid expansion

On Thurs., April 4, the Mineral County Commissioners finalized a letter to Representative Pat Ingraham expressing their support for the proposed federal Medicaid expansion.

Decision to send a letter comes after a delegation of representatives from the Mineral Community Hospital visited with commissioners on March 22 to elaborate on how the proposed expansion would benefit the county.

“The Mineral County Commissioners support the expansion of Medicaid,” the letter begins. “We also support language that includes a new high performing network that will improve patients’ health results and improve patient satisfaction thus increasing the value of health care. We believe that costs can be driven down by creating a system that focuses on the needs of the patient through better care coordination.”

The letter continues by stating that MCH has been providing health care to residents in the county since 1920 and currently there are 334 residents in the county who are uninsured and would qualify for Medicaid.

“A large number of residents are unable to afford preventative health care and use the hospital’s emergency room when they need very acute care,” the letter reads. “Normally these costs are non-reimbursable and are absorbed by our health system. The proposed Medicaid expansion would greatly reduce the health care services provided at no charge to low income Montanans in emergency rooms throughout the state. Seeing patients in the clinics rather than emergency rooms would greatly reduce costs.”

Finally, the letter references the “70 jobs” and “2 million dollars in revenue” the proposed expansion of Medicaid would create in the county.

“These generated dollars will primarily be spent locally and will benefit businesses throughout Mineral County,” the letter reads. “This kind of economic impact would greatly improve the current unemployment rate of 10.8 percent in our county.”

All three of the county commissioners signed the letter to Rep. Ingraham in support of the proposed expansion.

Denyse Traeder of MCH elaborated on how the expansion would benefit the county when she and other representatives from the hospital spoke to the commissioners.

“Really what it means for Mineral County is jobs and revenue and income,” Traeder said. “I think we can all agree it’s needed here.”

According to Traeder, the expansion is “a big deal” and if it was to happen it will add jobs throughout the county not just in the hospital.

“It’s everything from the bar to an administrative position at the hospital,” Traeder said. “One of the places it really affects is our health departments and our public assistance programs – it will ensure that a bunch of people who traditionally have not been able to meet the requirements for Medicaid will be insured.”

Traeder added that the expansion will cover people in the county who are traditionally accepted to the hospital for care but since they cannot afford it the county or other programs have to cover the cost.

Commissioner Duane Simons asked Traeder where the funds to cover medical care for residents who cannot afford it comes from and the question was fielded by George Bailey of MCH.

“Quite a few of the members of our community are not covered with insurance so just to give you an idea of the number we are currently carrying an excess of $660,000 of bad debt,” Bailey said. “We aren’t going to turn away a person and even if we wanted to we couldn’t so we have to absorb it.”