HELENA - Activists pushing for government-funded health coverage of all citizens took after U.S. Sen. Max Baucus and private health insurers again Friday at rallies across the state, but they also had something to cheer about.

Last week, a U.S. House committee amended a major health reform bill to allow individual states to set up a Medicare-for-all system, also known as a "single-payer" system, that covers everyone equally.

Now, said rally organizer Gene Fenderson in Helena, the test will be whether that amendment survives as the House and Senate wrestle with producing a reform bill this summer and fall.

"That (amendment) may stay in, it may get taken out," said Fenderson, a member of Montanans for Single-Payer, which sponsored the rallies. "We think the more we can show that the people of Montana truly believe in a single-payer plan ... the more likely (Baucus) will be to support the amendment."

Baucus, D-Mont., the chief architect of a yet-to-be-introduced health reform bill in the Senate, has said a single-payer system for the nation won't pass Congress and won't be considered as a potential reform.

Baucus and other congressional leaders are pushing bills that would require all citizens to have or purchase health insurance in the private market. The bills would provide subsidies to low- and moderate-income families to help them buy insurance.

Under a Medicare-for-all system, the government would provide health coverage to all citizens equally, supported by taxes. This model is also known as a single-payer system because the government is the sole "payer" of medical bills, replacing private health insurance for basic coverage.

Montanans for Single-Payer organized Friday's rallies in several cities, including Billings, Missoula, Bozeman, Butte and Helena, protesting outside offices of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Montana, the state's largest private health insurer.

In Helena, about 40 people gathered across the street from Blue Cross headquarters, as several Blue Cross employees looked on from their office windows.

Two Blue Cross executives, Frank Cote and Mark Burzynski, also came over to the rally and offered protesters bottles of water in the 85-degree heat.

The protesters later marched down to Baucus' local office, presenting the senator's staff a replica of a check for "more than $4 million" made out to "Max - a seat at the table," a reference to the nearly $4 million that Baucus has received in campaign contributions from health and insurance interests since 2003.

Jonathan Matthews, a speaker at the Helena rally, noted that Baucus has held fundraisers where insurance executives and others paid $10,000 a plate to bend the senator's ear on health reforms.

A single-payer system isn't being considered because its supporters "haven't contributed (enough) to have a seat the table," Matthews said.

Baucus spokesman Ty Matsdorf in Washington, D.C., said Friday the senator is committed to a reform bill that will "ensure all Montanans have access to quality, affordable health care."

"As Max moves forward with health care reform, working to improve the coverage and quality of health care while reducing costs, he continues to listen to the ideas and opinions of all Montanans to help craft a bill that is right for the state and the nation," Matsdorf said.

Blue Cross also released a statement after the rally, saying it supports health care reforms and the goal of universal access to health care. However, it said building on the country's current system of providing insurance through employers "holds much more promise toward achieving universal access to quality health care than a single-payer system."