Tempel talks about I 185 to Pachyderms

Montana Sen. Russ Tempel, R-Chester, spoke Friday to the North Central Pachyderm Club about his concern with I 185 and I 186, and spoke on his campaign against his opponent, Democrat Paul Tuss, in his bid for re-election this November.

Tempel said everybody has been asking about Initiative 185, which raises the tax of prepackaged pack of cigarettes by $2 and raised the tax on e-cigarettes, vapes and vape oil.

The money from the initiative is proposed to help fund Medicaid expansion and other programs. The state expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, leaving a sunset clause in unless the state acted to find funding for the program as federal funding is cut back.

Tempel said he would like to see the initiative go down and that it lacks some important items that he would personally like to see.

"There's all kinds of numbers floating around. ... I'm not sure anybody has the right one," Tempel said.

"Some of the things that were left out in that, were the sunset," Tempel said. "They've wanted to squanch the sunset, so it will never end. That's one real issue with that particular thing. The other one is a work element, they've left out the work element."

In Hill County 1,093 people are on the Montana Medicaid program, or HELP, between the ages of 19 to 25, Tempel said, with 2,031 newly enrolled as of March 1, 2018, 12.24 percent of the population, which Tempel said is the fifth highest out of 27 counties.

This spike in enrollment led to I 185's proposal, he added.

Liberty County has also seen 261 newly enrolled citizens in HELP, 11.06 percent of total population, 121 of them 19 to 34.

Tempel said the work element for the HELP program is important, in addition to mandatory drug testing, because there are people who need help legitimately, "but you cannot tell me that 121 people in Liberty County are walking around that need help."

Eliminating the sunset issue is one problem that is glaring, Tempel said, and if people, as a result, quitt smoking and using other products there will be no funds to continue paying for these programs.

President of the Hill County Republican Central Committee Andrew Brekke said, as an insurance agent, he has customers who were previously paying for their own insurance with no aid, but after the adjustment they changed to Medicaid because they were suddenly eligible. He added that commercials saying that 100,000 people are at risk of being kicked off Medicaid ignores that the bulk of that 100,000 were previously able to afford proper health insurance and nothing to do with people who were not previously covered.

"Every single one of those individuals was paying their own bill, 100 percent, with no subsidy, on their own," Brekke said. "Then the state of Montana and the taxpayers, or at least the taxpayers from the federal level, were paying that for the last couple of years."

" ... To talk about people who have developmental disabilities, or to talk about people who have almost no income, or are physically disabled in some way who need Medicaid, is one category of folks. ... but it's a whole different situation than what people believe," he said.

Pam Harada said she has concerns for I 185, with it being a negative tax on anyone who is low income and using tobacco or other products. They will pay dearly, Harada said, adding that the higher price is not truly a deterrent for people to quit.

Tempel said he has many things he would like to work on in the future if re-elected, such as energy concerns, industry and other items. He added that he wants to make sure people know that rural Montana has a voice and to voice the concerns that the region has with some of the issues that are being voted on.

"Rural Montana does not have a voice," Tempel said. "A couple of different times people came up to me, tell me, 'I did not realize that rural Montana had an issue.' That's one thing I would like to make sure when I'm down there, make sure rural Montana has a voice."