Montana

Procedural barriers complicate Medicaid enrollment for the unhoused

Published

2 years ago

February 28, 2024

Procedural barriers complicate Medicaid enrollment for the unhoused

On a cold February morning at the Flathead Warming Center in Kalispell, shelter guests got ready for the day, eating breakfast, or figuring out if the bus was running on time.

Tashya Evans was in the parking lot smoking a cigarette while she waited for help with her Medicaid application.

Evans is one of about 120,000 Montanans who lost Medicaid as the state re-evaluated everyone’s eligibility. That number is still growing as the state releases more data.

About two-thirds of those who were kicked off state Medicaid rolls lost it for technical reasons like incorrectly filling out paperwork. That’s one of the highest procedural disenrollment rates nationwide, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.

Even unsheltered people like Evans, who still qualify, are losing their health insurance. That’s despite the state saying publicly it would use datasets like social security and disability to automatically renew people who likely still qualify for Medicaid.

Evans said she lost coverage in September because she didn’t receive paperwork as she moved from Great Falls.

That’s forcing her to forgo her blood pressure medication and pause dental work. She thinks her blood pressure has been ok, but waiting for the dentist has been hard.

“The teeth broke off. My gums hurt. There’s sometimes where I’m not feeling good and I don’t want to eat,” she said.

She sat down in a spare shelter office with an application counselor from Greater Valley Health Clinic, which serves much of the homeless population in the Flathead Valley.

Evans recounted all the struggles she’s had.

She tried asking for help at the local state public assistance office. She said staff there don’t have time to answer all her questions about which forms she needs to fill out or walk through the paperwork with her. She tried the state help line, but she couldn’t get through.

“You just get to the point where you’re like, ‘I’m frustrated right now. I have other things that are more important, so let’s not deal with it,’” she said.

Evans said she needs to spend her time looking for a job, finding her next meal and a place to sleep. Sitting on the phone most of the day isn’t feasible.

There’s no public data on how many unhoused people in Montana, or nationwide, have lost Medicaid, but homeless service providers and experts say it’s a big problem.

Montana health officials said they provided training to prepare homeless service providers.

State health department Director Charlie Brereton also resisted calls from Democratic state lawmakers to pause the redetermination process.

“I’m confident in our redetermination process,” Brereton told lawmakers. “I do believe that many of the Medicaid members who’ve been disenrolled were disenrolled correctly.”

Redetermination went on as planned, ending in January, four months ahead of the federal deadline.

Those helping unsheltered people who have lost coverage said they have spent much of their time trying to help people get in touch with the state Medicaid office to provide them with the correct information.

Sorting through paperwork mistakes has also been a headache, said Crystal Baker, a case manager at HRDC, the homeless shelter in Bozeman.

“We’re getting mail that’s like, ‘Oh, this needs to be turned in by this date,’ and that’s already two weeks past. So, now we have to start the process all over again. Now, they have to wait two to three months without insurance,” she said.

Federal health officials warned Montana and other conservative states that have been unenrolling high rates of people for technicalities. The agency also warned states for having unreasonable barriers to accessing assistance, such as long hold times on help lines. CMS said that it could force states to halt their process, but so far hasn’t done so.

However, experts said blue states are also kicking homeless people off their rolls and that the redetermination has been chaotic everywhere. Because of the barriers unsheltered people face, it’s easy for them to fall through the cracks.

“It doesn’t seem like such a big deal to fill out paperwork,” said Dr. Margot Kushel, a primary care provider and a homeless researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. “Put yourself in the position of an elder who’s experiencing homelessness and has lost their vision, who has no access to [a] computer, no access to [a] car, doesn’t have [a] cell phone.”

People can typically get retroactive coverage if they get back on Medicaid after they are kicked off.

Kushel said being without Medicaid for any period can be dangerous for the homeless community, which has high rates of chronic health conditions.

“Being out of your asthma medicine for three days can be life threatening. If you have high blood pressure and you suddenly stop your medicine, your blood pressure shoots up, and your risk of having a heart attack goes way up,” she said.

When people don’t understand why they’re losing coverage or how to get it back, that erodes their trust in the medical system, said Kushel.

Evans, who was able to get help with her application, is likely to regain coverage.

Providers on the ground said it could take years to get everyone who lost coverage back on Medicaid. They worry that those who go without coverage will resort to using the emergency room rather than managing their health conditions proactively.

Baker, the case manager at the Bozeman shelter, set up several call-backs from the state for one client. The state needed to interview him to make sure he still qualified, but the state never called back.

“He waited all-day long. It was so stressful for him that he just gave up,” she said.

That client ended up leaving the Bozeman area before she could convince him it was worth trying to regain Medicaid.

Baker worries his health will catch up with him before he decides to reapply to Medicaid.

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Montana

Montana Supreme Court allows ballot measure on initiative process to move forward

Published

8 hours ago

March 4, 2026

Press Room

Montana Supreme Court allows ballot measure on initiative process to move forward

HELENA — The Montana Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a proposed ballot measure intended to simplify the process for introducing ballot measures in the future.

Justices ruled 5-2 that the measure, currently called Ballot Issue #8, did not violate state requirements that a single constitutional amendment can’t make multiple separate changes to the Montana Constitution.

“We’re very grateful to the Montana Supreme Court for agreeing with us that the attorney general’s finding of legal insufficiency for Ballot Issue #8 was incorrect,” said SK Rossi, a spokesperson for Montanans Decide, the group sponsoring the measure.

Montanans Decide argues the Montana Legislature has passed laws making it harder for the public to propose and pass ballot issues. The Montana Constitution already guarantees the people the right to pass laws and amendments through ballot measures, but Ballot Issue #8 would expand that to include a right to “impartial, predictable, transparent, and expeditious processes” for proposing those measures. It would seek to prevent “interference from the government or the use of government resources to support or oppose the ballot issue.”

Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s office argued the measure “implicitly amended” multiple provisions in the state constitution, including by limiting the “power and authority of public officials to speak officially on ballot issues that affect those officials’ public duties” and by putting restrictions on judges and on the Legislature. Montanans Decide, the group sponsoring Ballot Issue #8, disagreed – and the majority of justices sided with them.

“Its provisions operate together to define and protect a single constitutional right—the people’s exercise of initiative and referendum,” wrote Justice Katherine Bidegaray in the majority opinion. “They are closely related components of one constitutional design.”

Bidegaray’s majority opinion was joined by Justices Jim Shea, Laurie McKinnon, Beth Baker and Ingrid Gustafson.

Chief Justice Cory Swanson and Justice Jim Rice each wrote dissenting opinions, saying they would have upheld Knudsen’s decision to disallow Ballot Issue #8. Rice said the language restricting government interference with a ballot issue was not closely related and should have been a separate vote. Swanson agreed with Rice and said the measure’s attempt to fix a timeline for legal cases surrounding ballot measures was also a separate substantial change.

In a statement, Chase Scheuer, a spokesperson for Knudsen’s office, reacted to the decision.

“This decision only further muddies the courts’ jurisprudence on ballot issue questions,” he said. “This initiative would violate the separate vote requirement by amending multiple parts of the Montana Constitution, but the court contradicted its prior rulings. Attorney General Knudsen will continue to neutrally apply the separate vote requirement in his review of ballot initiatives.”

The court’s decision means that Knudsen’s office will now need to approve ballot language for Ballot Issue #8. Once that language is finalized, Montanans Decide could begin gathering signatures to qualify the measure for the November ballot.

However, last year, sponsors of another initiative went to the Supreme Court to argue that the ballot statements Knudsen prepared were misleading. If Montanans Decide object to their ballot statements, that could further delay signature gathering while the case plays out in court.

“Regardless, we’re going to push as hard as we can to get those petitions into the hands of voters and let them sign and support if they so choose,” said Rossi.

Rossi said the legal battle this measure has gone through – and the possibility of more to come – shows why Ballot Issue #8 is needed.

“The state Legislature, and also statewide elected officials, have taken every opportunity to create burdens and hurdles and rigamarole for campaigns to get through in order to just get to the signature gathering phase, and then to get through the signature gathering phase onto the ballot, and then get through the election phase,” said Rossi. “The reason we filed this initiative is just to make sure that the process is simple, that the timeline is clear, and that Montanans can have their will heard when they want to propose and pass laws that they deem worthy.”

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Montana

Christi Jacobsen enters race for Western House seat

Published

20 hours ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

Christi Jacobsen enters race for Western House seat

HELENA, Mont. — Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen is running for Montana’s Western Congressional District seat, entering the race a day after U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke announced he would not seek reelection.

Jacobsen’s announcement sets up a new contest for the open seat after Zinke, a Republican, said he would seek reelection.

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“As your Secretary of State, I’ve stood up to Washington overreach, defended election integrity, and delivered real results for Montanans. In 2020, voters gave me a mandate to clean up our elections, grow Montana business, and push back against radical liberal special interests. I delivered. Now it’s time to take that same results-driven, America First leadership to Congress.”

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Montana

Montana Lottery Powerball, Lotto America results for March 2, 2026

Published

1 day ago

March 3, 2026

Press Room

The Montana Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.

Here’s a look at March 2, 2026, results for each game:

Winning Powerball numbers from March 2 drawing

02-17-18-38-62, Powerball: 20, Power Play: 2

Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Lotto America numbers from March 2 drawing

03-08-17-24-34, Star Ball: 06, ASB: 02

Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Big Sky Bonus numbers from March 2 drawing

06-12-19-29, Bonus: 11

Check Big Sky Bonus payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Powerball Double Play numbers from March 2 drawing

21-28-58-65-67, Powerball: 25

Check Powerball Double Play payouts and previous drawings here.

Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from March 2 drawing

28-41-42-50-55, Bonus: 02

Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.

Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results

When are the Montana Lottery drawings held?

Powerball: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
Mega Millions: 9 p.m. MT on Tuesday and Friday.
Lucky For Life: 8:38 p.m. MT daily.
Lotto America: 9 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
Big Sky Bonus: 7:30 p.m. MT daily.
Powerball Double Play: 8:59 p.m. MT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
Montana Cash: 8 p.m. MT on Wednesday and Saturday.
Millionaire for Life: 9:15 p.m. MT daily.

Missed a draw? Peek at the past week’s winning numbers.

This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a Great Falls Tribune editor. You can send feedback using this form.

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