State auditor excited to get healthy kids plan in place

After Montana voters approved the Healthy Montana Kids Plan by voting in favor of I-155 by a 70-30 percent margin in November, Montana State Auditor John Morrison is excited to get the plan implemented in the state.

He said the first step is for the Montana legislators to approve the $22 million for the plan. After that, the state will receive $75 million in federal matching funds.

“All the legislators have to do is turn on the tap and the program is ready to go,” Morrison told the Herald.

State and federal officials then need to approve the plan taking over for CHIP and Medicaid for children’s health needs.

“Everybody gets the Healthy Montana Kids Plan,” Morrison explained. “We eliminate the stigma and put the kids into an organized health plan.”

When he was promoting the plan prior to the election, Morrison noted 34,000 children in the state are uninsured. The program aims to cover 30,000 of these children.

One of the largest tasks of the program is to register children in its enrollment system. Families will be able to sign up at a variety of places including hospitals, schools and sports programs. Some children don’t currently have health coverage simply because they haven’t been able to register.

“I’ve talked to a number of hospital and school administrators and they were all supportive,” Morrison said of assisting with enrollment. “Seven or eight of the largest hospitals in the state contributed to the initiative.”

He noted children can be enrolled when they are born and get their first shots.

“We’re making it as easy as possible to sign the kids up,” Morrison said.

He’s hopeful the enrollment program starts as early as October.

Because of current economical problems, people may question whether this is the right time to add the health program. Morrison feels it’s a vital time to move forward since 50 percent of bankruptcies in Montana are at least partly caused by medical expenses.

Morrison believes in President-elect Obama’s words from last week: “It’s not something that we can sort of put off because we’re in an emergency. This is part of the emergency.”

As Morrison is nearing the end of his time as state auditor because of term limits, he’s glad to end his run on this high note.

“It’s been eight years and I’ve enjoyed the job,” Morrison said. “We’ve been able to work on a lot of interesting things that hopefully helped people in the state of Montana. But this is probably the biggest step forward that I’ve seen.”

editor@sidneyherald.com