HELENA (LEE)--The state Senate Monday revived a bill to help fund new health clinics that offer health care to low-income Montanans, who often have no health insurance.

A Senate panel had voted Friday to kill House Bill 406, which contains $1.3 million of one-time spending to help establish at least one new "community health clinic" and perhaps another.

But on a 29-21 vote Monday, senators chose to bring the measure to the Senate floor for debate and possible approval.

"We talk a lot about the uninsured and the under-insured," said Sen. Roy Brown, R-Billings, who made the motion to revive HB406. "This actually does some help for these people."

The vote crossed party lines, although 20 of the 29 senators voting for the bill were Republicans.

Sen. Trudi Schmidt, D-Great Falls and chairwoman of the Senate Finance and Claims Committee, said the panel voted to kill the measure because members felt they had to draw the line on spending somewhere.

HB406 is one of several spending bills that had been tabled by the panel in the past week, after it and the Senate had approved spending elsewhere that exceeds levels recommended by Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

"I know the community health clinics are very valuable, but we had to make that vote," she said of the committee decision.

Schmidt and 16 fellow Democrats voted against the motion to bring the bill to the floor. If HB406 wins approval from the full Senate this week, it would go to Schweitzer for his signature.

Chuck Hunter, a lobbyist for the Montana Primary Care Association, has said the $1.3 million could help start at least one new clinic within the next year and possibly another, depending on availability of other matching funds. Communities looking to start a clinic include Kalispell, Hamilton, Lewistown and Havre, he said.

The bill is supposed to help start clinics and qualify them for federal funds, or help existing clinics expand.

The clinics offer medical, dental and mental health services to those who can least afford it and who often have no health insurance.

Their prices are based on the customers' ability to pay.

Montana is one of only a dozen states that provide no state funding for community health centers, which already serve about 75,000 Montanans a year.

Montana has 11 such centers that receive at least part of their budget in federal funds.

Hunter said Monday he is encouraged by the vote to bring the measure to the Senate floor.

"I can't believe there's not money for this, that does so much good for so many people," he said.