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 government intrusion in the private lives of individuals.

Under Montana's separate program, state employees were quickly booking slots for the privately operated clinic, which the state expects to generate savings by reducing duplicate testing for patients and by paying doctors by the hour rather than by the procedure.

 "We're completely full," Schweitzer said on a recent tour of the facility ahead of its opening, the first of three scheduled to open this year.

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