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Federal health officials are taking public comment on Montana’s proposal to expand Medicaid coverage to approximately 70,000 low-income residents. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s comment period on the compromise legislation signed by Gov. Steve Bullock earlier this year lasts until Oct. 15. The state has asked the federal agency to accept the state’s plan by Nov. 1 and provide benefits by Jan. 1. (9/18)

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana is the highest-scoring bidder to manage the state’s multimillion-dollar Medicaid expansion next year, and will likely get the contract. A state contract evaluation committee this week gave Blue Cross a score of 1,062 points, edging out the second-place bidder, Oregon-based health insurer PacificSource, by 44 points. ... If Montana’s expansion plan is approved by the federal government, it would be the first state to have a private insurer manage the entire program. Blue Cross would collect premiums, process claims and arrange the network of medical providers serving those covered by the expansion. (Dennison, 9/18)

The state health department says it enrolled more than 1,000 Alaskans in health care coverage in the first two weeks of the newly expanded Medicaid program. ... About 450 people filed their own applications with the state since expanded enrollment began Sept. 1, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. The state transferred another 560 people from other assistance programs, said Sarana Schell, a department spokeswoman. (Herz, 9/20)

In the Nov. 3 state legislative elections, Virginia voters ... will have the opportunity to express their views on Medicaid expansion. Most of the Republican candidates for House of Delegates and Senate seats oppose McAuliffe's expansion proposal, while Democrats support it. All 140 seats in both chambers of the Virginia General Assembly are up for election. Currently, Republicans control both the House and Senate. Democrats need to pick up only one Senate seat to gain effective control of that chamber, though Medicaid expansion would still face an uphill fight in the House, where the GOP holds a two-thirds majority. Some observers say the Virginia state elections not only could swing the outcome of that state's Medicaid battle but could affect expansion's national momentum. (Dickson, 9/19)

Gov. Sam Brownback hasn’t joined the chorus of people calling for Medicaid expansion after the announcement that Kansas will lose its first hospital in nine years. The Mercy Hospital system plans to close its hospital in Independence next month in part because of the state’s reluctance to expand Medicaid, which provides health coverage to poor and disabled Kansans. ... “I don’t think we have the resources to get it done,” Brownback told students at Hutchinson Community College last week. He described how the state’s Medicaid costs have grown even without expansion. (Lowrey and Leffler, 9/19)