Daines misled on Medicaid numbers

Apparently U.S. Sen. Steve Daines is now taking lessons from President Trump on alternative facts, as he asserts that the Medicaid budget is equal to that of the U.S. military (Missoulian, Feb. 17, "Daines defends actions in town hall").

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services list the current fiscal year Medicaid budget at $385.69 billion, while the appropriation passed in the fiscal year 2017 Defense Authorization bill is for a total of $619 billion. Even if you only looked at the Department of Defense base budget of $532 billion, it still exceeds that of Medicaid by a significantly large amount.

We, as Senator Daines' constituents, deserve better from him than bluster and misleading information. How can we trust that he can make appropriate decisions when he can't get the numbers right?

Linda Henderson,

Missoula