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With the clock ticking to get a Montana Medicaid expansion bill through the Senate by a March 31 deadline, a Senate committee on Monday stalled in its consideration of the measure. (Baumann, 3/24)

The sole surviving bill to expand Medicaid coverage to as many as 70,000 low-income Montanans took another strange twist Monday night, as it stalled in committee after opponents attached several unfriendly amendments. Yet the sponsor of Senate Bill 405, Sen. Ed Buttrey, R-Great Falls, said after a series of votes in the Senate Public Health Committee that he didn’t consider the action all bad, and that his bill remains alive. (Dennison, 3/23)

The recent legislative hearings on Medicaid expansion brought representatives from dozens of powerful groups to the Statehouse. Lobbyists representing hospitals, doctors and some big businesses pleaded with members of the House Health and Human Services Committee to approve an expansion proposal one day. The next, representatives of conservative, anti-tax organizations urged committee members to continue to say ‘no’ to expansion, despite the billions of additional federal dollars it would inject into the Kansas economy. (McLean, 3/23)

Dozens of advocates are expected in Raleigh to deliver a petition to Gov. Pat McCrory asking him to back expanding Medicaid in North Carolina. The advocates are calling Tuesday Medicaid Expansion Advocacy Day. They timed the event for the day a proposal to expand the government health insurance is expected on the floor of the North Carolina House. (3/24)

An effort to revive Republican Gov. Bill Haslam's Insure Tennessee proposal received a positive recommendation in a Senate subcommittee Monday. The resolution sponsored by Democratic Sen. Jeff Yarbro of Nashville would authorize Haslam to pursue his plan to extend health coverage to 280,000 low-income Tennesseans. The governor's original proposal was defeated in a Senate committee in a special session in February. ... The measure now moves to the Senate Health Committee, which has a different makeup than the specially appointed panel that rejected the Insure Tennessee proposal on a 7-4 vote last month. Four senators on the nine-member committee have now voted in favor of the measure either in the special session or in the subcommittee. Supporters will need to find at least one more vote to get the bill to advance out of the full committee. (3/24)