Each year, over 150,000 Montanans struggle to provide health insurance coverage for their families. For thousands more, the cost of health insurance is making it harder and harder to meet their families’ other basic needs. 

The health reform package recently passed by Congress may not solve all of our health care system’s underlying problems, but it will bring coverage to thousands of Montana families who had been living without access to affordable health care, at relatively low cost to the state of Montana.

This edition of the State of Working Montana explains how health reform will improve access to care in Montana.  While we do not cover every provision included in the bill, we have kept a sharp focus on how the bill improves affordability of insurance and access to coverage for the uninsured.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by Congress last year did a lot to jumpstart growth in Montana. Jobs, services, and investment have stayed afloat thanks to this crucial piece of legislation. It's hard to imagine how much worse things would have been without the stimulus package.

This report details how the ARRA kept people working, services functioning, and money flowing due to its injection of spending into our economy.

The Montana economy has experienced a lot of turmoil over the last two years. Across the state, the quantity and quality of jobs has declined thanks to lay-offs, reduced pay, and other effects of the global economic crisis.

A new report from the Montana Budget and Policy Center examines the impacts of the economic downturn on our state, finds that many lack the opportunity to create a better future for their families, and outlines potential pathways to a more prosperous future for all Montanans.

Download the report at the link below.

Six Montana economists have joined over 200 economists from 38 states in signing a letter urging state governments to “maintain the public services that are critical to the health of the economy and the well-being of working families,” because “cutbacks at this time would further slow the economy and harm those already hardest hit by the downturn."

New U.S. Census Bureau data shows that 175,621 Montanans, or 18.5% of the population, lacked health insurance coverage in 2008. That number would be significantly higher without public health care options such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Children's Health Insurance.  An additional 234,834 Montanans, or 24.7% of the population, were covered by public health insurance.  The number of uninsured for 2009 will likely be much worse because we are now deeper into the recession.