HELENA, Montana (Reuters) - Montana, looking to cut down on state healthcare costs, has opened the nation's first government-run clinic for state employees in a program the Rocky Mountain state's governor says could ultimately cover a much broader range of people.

Democratic Governor Brian Schweitzer says the primary care clinic in the state capital Helena will keep the area's 11,000 state workers and their dependents healthier while saving the state $20 million over five years.

The move coincides with a national debate over the role of government in healthcare and over President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, under which more than 30 million people would become eligible to buy subsidized private insurance or get coverage through Medicaid, the government program for the poor, in 2014.

Republican opponents of that law better known to the public as "Obamacare," which also requires most Americans to have some form of health insurance, say it amounts to governm ... Read more »