2014 MT Senate debate: on Health Care

Amanda Curtis: ObamaCare: don't throw the baby out with the bathwater

Sam Rankin: Tort reform plus higher deductibles & co-pays

Medicare
• Increase cost sharing: Deductible of $500, 20% co-pay with $7,500.00 cap.
• Don't pay hospitals bad debts i.e. for not collecting patient deductibles.
• Restrict first-dollar coverage in supplemental insurance plans.
• Tort reform to stop overuse of diagnostic tests i.e. defensive medicine.
• Statute of limitations on lawsuits
• Creating 'health courts'.
• Consider caps on punitive & non-economic damages.

Champ Edmunds: Repeal ObamaCare; it's not a government responsibility

Edmunds: Strongly Disagree

Question topic: The Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) should be repealed by Congress.

Edmunds: Strongly Agree

John Walsh: Yes to Medicare Rx negotiations; no to privatization

Walsh leveled his strongest attack yet against his likely challenger, Republican Steve Daines, calling Daines the purveyor of a "cruel ideology" that "only seeks to preserve privilege."

Walsh slammed Daines for votes to "privatize Medicare," cut tax rates for the wealthy, shut down the federal government last October and cut food stamps. He pointed to Daines' 2013 vote for the proposed House Republican budget, which would have converted Medicare to a system of subsidies to help the elderly buy private insurance or traditional Medicare, as well as reduced tax rates for the wealthy and most taxpayers.

John Bohlinger: Strong advocate of a single-payer system like Medicare

"We know that the Affordable Care Act has met with a great deal of resistance in Montana," he said, carefully. "People are disappointed that it hasn't been able to deliver what was promised. We know that--oh, gosh, more than 30,000 Montanans have had their insurance policies canceled."

"It's 38,000 now," interjected Bohlinger's strategist.

"And the new insurance is more expensive than the old insurance," said the candidate. "It hasn't worked. We're strong advocates of a single-payer system. Medicare works for me." Bohlinger went on, talking about how Montana had invested in hospitals for state employees, and how one of them had outfitted him with a titanium hip. "My out-of-pocket cost was $300."

John Bohlinger: Expand Medicaid to cover 70,000 low-income Montanans

Yet the Democratic governor expressed no enthusiasm for the idea. Bullock, who proposed expanding Medicaid this year, has said that he sees no point in calling a special session, because the Republican majority in the Legislature is likely to reject it again.

Bohlinger said the issue of Medicaid expansion is too important to wait until 2015. Thousands of low-income Montanans are unable to get health-care coverage that will be required next year, either because they've had difficult using the new online ObamaCare marketplace or because they're too poor to get any assistance, he said.