Politics & Government

An Essential Guide To Idaho's Medicaid Program

In the world of social programs, Medicaid is one of the hardest to understand. It’s something of a catch-all program for low-income people, covering broad and divergent needs. Included are healthy children and adults with eligible dependent children, people with disabilities or special health needs, and the elderly. Eligibility is income-based and it varies according the category of qualification for the program.During the state’s 2011 fiscal year, more than three quarters of the funding allocated to the Department of Health and Welfare’s budget went to Medicaid. The program received about $1.55 billion in federal and state funding, with 74 percent of those dollars coming from the federal government.Enrollment in Idaho’s Medicaid program has grown substantially in recent years. The average monthly Medicaid enrollment was fairly stable between 2006 and 2008. It grew by about 3.5 percent. But in the last three years, the program’s enrollment has grown nearly 21 percent. Ballooning from about 185,000 in 2008 to 228,897 in 2012.

How Trump Election Could Impact Health Coverage Of 78,000 Low-Income Idahoans

Boise State Public Radio News | By Frankie Barnhill

Published November 11, 2016 at 11:29 AM MST

It was a refrain we heard over and over during President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign.

“Unless you get hit by a truck, you’re never going to be able to use it," Trump said at the second presidential debate. "It is a disastrous plan and it has to repealed and replaced.”

The Affordable Care Act is one of the bigger Obama administration policies on Trump's chopping block. In Idaho, this means the Democratic-led push to expand Medicaid to cover 78,000 low-income Idahoans is dead.

“There’s not an appetite for Medicaid expansion," says state Sen. Marv Hagedorn (R-Meridian), "especially now that we’re going to have President Trump and the ACA is going to be changed.”

Hagedorn is co-chairman of an interim legislative group that's held five meetings since July. He’s been critical of Obamacare since the beginning.

“We know that we need to focus on the delivery of health care and getting that population of working poor healthier. That is going to cost the taxpayers less money in the long-run, so I think that is what our focus needs to be.”

He says no matter what may happen on the federal level, his goal in the state legislature in the coming year remains to get a state-run program up and running to address at least the primary care needs of Idahoans without health care.

Find Frankie Barnhill on Twitter @FABarnhill

How Trump Election Could Impact Health Coverage Of 78,000 Low-Income Idahoans

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