Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Thursday that Montana is seeking bids to develop its own employee medical clinic to improve the quality of care for state employees, legislators and their dependents, and to decrease health care costs.
Schweitzer told reporters such a plan would eventually benefit nearly 12,000 employees.
“I can’t find anyone in Montana who supports the current health care system,” he said.
He said the development of the health center would come from existing funds. The new system would pay its startup costs the first year and save the state $1 million in its second year.
Schweitzer said it made “good sense” for the state to have its own health care center, adding it was a concept already used by health management organizations. And he noted that one of the most rapid rising costs for government was in providing health care for employees.
“We believe this will decrease costs for the state of Montana and increase care for employees,” he said.
The center under consideration would offer primary care physician services, including preventive medicine and treating sick patients. But the state would negotiate costs with providers.
Schweitzer, in the final year of his term as governor, said he hoped to have the clinic running by the end of the year. According to the proposal, the first health center location would be in Helena, but a statewide presence is desired and would likely occur over several years.
Schweitzer said eventually he would move Medicaid patients into the pool with state employees and then allow private residents to join.
He did not see his plan as socialized medicine.
“What I am proposing today is good old-fashioned capitalism,” Schweitzer said. He said the plan did not need legislative approval.
House Speaker Mike Milburn, R-Cascade, was skeptical of the plan and said he believed it would have to come before the Legislature.
“This is a stretch to think this sort of thing would work or be the proper thing for the state to be involved in,” he said adding lawmakers would want health care to be less expensive for everyone, not just state employees. He said there were many details that need to be studied before a decision could be made.
Eric Feaver, president of the state’s largest public employees union, the MEA-MFT, wrote in an e-mail that he had “great expectations” from the governor’s plan.
“We will do what we can to help the governor push this health care construct fast and forward,” he stated.
Timm Twardoski, executive director of the AFSCME employees union, said he had few details on the governor’s plan “but on its face value it makes sense to me.”
He said, however, he would not want a plan that only benefitted employees who lived in the Helena area and that any proposal should help all state employees.

Quinton Nyman, executive director of the Montana Public Employees Association, said he liked the idea, adding it was “good for public employees.”
He agreed the service should be available to all state employees, but said it could start in Helena and then branch out to other areas of Montana. Schweitzer said the next governor of the state could end the program. “New management could have new philosophies,” he said.
Nyman said he hoped future governors would keep the program going.
“It’s a good solution for dealing with costs of health care and keeping costs down,” he said.
Schweitzer said Montana now has more than $460 million “in the bank,” partly due to cuts, savings and prudent spending.
To read the request for proposal, click here.

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