#13

On our trip to Helena on Friday we went to a committee meeting after we took a grand tour of the capital building. While sitting in front of the committee meeting looking at HB 249 we were sitting in the balcony. Crowded seating was a very common thing. Sitting in the room that felt to be no less than 95 degrees was full of people mainly for the bill were also accompanied by people against the bill. The people for the bill seemed to be Native Americans and lower income people who would benefit from the bill. There were also other people there that were for the bill like insurance groups and doctors.

While some people on the committee seemed to be intently listening it seemed that other people were not intently listening. It felt as if some people were doing everything they could to not fall asleep. As of right now the democrats are losing and the republicans are winning. We shall see how it ends by the end of it. In the past few days it seems that the bill is now dead. I think that the bill or some version of it will pass. There are to many people for it for it to not pass.

I think she is right. I think that if it comes out of the committee stuff that it will pass. People are taking to large of majors for it to not pass.

I think that in Montana we don't have a ton of jobs for the disabled people. I think that if you are a lower incomed family that it would be hard  to keep your family up if you had an unexpected medical bill. Being a family that sends a lot of time at the hospital I know the impact that medical bills can have on a family. I also think that since Montana's people are required to pay a medicaid tax that we should get to see some of this money come back into our state.

I can also see this bill start to get abused. Now that the drug testing for medicaid has passed however, I believe that it will be harder to abuse it. However not impossible. I think that we will have to keep track of people on it.