I once served on two of the boards of Montana’s largest hospitals. I stay in touch with doctors and nurses. They are in shock over national and Montana political leaders’ attacks on health care professionals. The Montana Attorney General and the Republicans in the last legislature are killing the morale of doctors and nurses. One doctor told me of a recent Republican state senator who said, “hospitals are falsifying death certificates to get more money, while pushing kale as a COVID treatment”. The hostility of elected officials attacking health care has led to more violence within health care facilities. It has also led to much larger expenditures for security. It has hurt recruiting. House Bill 702 is the most serious of anti-health and anti-business bills of our last legislature. Among other things, it attacks private business, and other organizations, from requiring vaccines against measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, and even flu shots. Montana is the only state with the Governor’s signature to implement such an anti-business effort. Idaho’s Republican Governor vetoed a similar bill from the Idaho Legislature. He said, “I am vetoing this legislation, because I am a lifelong advocate of limited government”. The bill, he said, “expands government overreach into the private sector”. Government overreach is a concept foreign to the last Montana legislature on so many fronts. Montana health care providers face major issues on federal and state Medicaid and Medicare payments. They will find a friend in me. Source: https://www.buchananformontana.com/issues/ 7/25/2022
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