Low-income Montanans suffering from mental illness might find the details a little nutty, but many will certainly benefit from an upcoming boost in the amount of money available to them to buy their medications.

The state Addictive and Mental Disorders Division, which told the last legislative session it would be forced to decrease the monthly cap on prescription benefits for eligible patients to only $250 a month, now says it can raise that figure to $425 a month.

The agency said it can do so by changing the way it pays for mental health services. Rather than paying set fees to any provider in Montana, the state will limit the providers it contracts with to about 10, and give each of them a certain amount of money in return for providing mental health services to patients in the program, which is limited to those who aren't eligible for Medicaid but earn less than 150 percent of the federal poverty level.

Patients might wonder why the state, which has capped payments for medicines at $250 a month since last January, didn't come up with the new system more quickly. After all, the new method apparently is similar to one used in the past.

But the important thing is that the higher cap will significantly help many people.

Mental patients typically are best helped by a specific type or combination of drugs, and if they can't afford them, their condition can deteriorate in a hurry. That's not only bad news for them, but also for the rest of us who face having to pay for far more costly treatment in the form of jailing or hospitalizing people who have fallen out of control.

This year's human service cutbacks have hurt many Montanans, but it is difficult to imagine actually losing one's self for the lack of prescription drugs. We're glad the state has found a way to reduce some of that pain.