Did you catch the debate at the state capitol over expanding Medicaid? It wasn’t really a debate at all. Instead, it was a drawn-out discussion about rules, whether they were broken and whether the full House of Representatives would be allowed to vote on Senate Bill 405.
It began to get weird last week after several hours of public testimony in the House Human Services Committee. That’s when the legislation, which was proposed by Republican Sen. Ed Buttrey, already passed the Republican-controlled Senate and is considered to be a compromise by those who support it, began to get amended.
First, a motion was proposed to revert the bill to simple Medicaid expansion, which Gov. Steve Bullock had previously supported and would have little chance of passing since SB 405 is considered a more conservative bill that had garnered GOP support. That motion passed. Then a motion was proposed to amend the bill to a citizen referendum. That motion passed. At one point, a lawmaker threw up his hands and said he couldn’t support the legislation after all the changes. It was fake outrage. This was the plan all along; to kill the bill by changing it before it was sent to the House floor. But it didn’t work, partially because of the so-called “silver bullets” rule agreed to between the two parties before the session began and partially, I would argue, because of Americans for Prosperity, which may have upset enough Republicans that the super PAC actually helped pass the bill it so ardently opposed.
After the committee gave the modified Senate bill an adverse report, which would have required a two-thirds majority to pass, House Minority Leader Chuck Hunter objected on the House floor and a lengthy rules debate commenced. According to Hunter, he and Speaker Austin Knudsen had agreed that six measures could be blasted to the floor for an up-or-down vote using silver bullets and SB 405 had been designated as one of those bills. Knudsen disagreed, and it appeared Medicaid expansion was doomed. But the House rules then began working against the speaker.
About a dozen moderate Republicans joined every Democrat in overruling the speaker’s decisions. They voted that the silver bullets rule should apply to SB 405 and that a simple majority of lawmakers would determine whether it should pass. An anti-expansion lawmaker then proposed adjourning for the entire session – yes, before a budget had even passed. That motion failed, but it did garner 40 GOP votes, which highlighted how much some lawmakers oppose Medicaid expansion, even if this version requires enrollees to pay premiums and co-payments and was proposed by a Republican. Buttrey’s Health and Economic Livelihood Partnership (HELP) Act is estimated to cover about 45,000 Montanans and will be paid entirely by the federal government through 2016, with its share beginning to decline to 90 percent after that.
Along with House Republican leadership, AFP campaigned hard against the legislation, but in the end may have done more harm than good. Skeptical audience members openly heckled AFP representatives at “town hall meetings” across the state targeting moderate GOP lawmakers who had refused to sign blanket pledges opposing expansion. You have to wonder if a few of those targeted legislators supported SB 405 out of spite for the group.
After Medicaid expansion passed the House, AFP embarrassed itself again when its state director Zach Lahn released a statement that read in part, “This decision stands directly against the voices of millions of Montanans who have made it clear that they do not want more Obamacare.” It’s unclear where these “millions of Montanans” live, but it’s certainly not Montana, which has a population of about 1 million. Soon after Lahn’s statement, #MillionsofMontanans became a popular post on social media. If Republicans in the House wanted to stop Medicaid expansion, it could have used a more competent ally.