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.

Medicaid Alternative Bills Expected During Idaho 2017 Legislature

Boise State Public Radio News | By Frankie Barnhill

Published January 10, 2017 at 1:47 PM MST

State Sen. Marv Hagedorn (R-Meridian) plans to present a bill that will be an alternative to Medicaid expansion. He says the landscape has changed since the election of Donald Trump.

Idaho Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter’s 11th State of the State addressMonday focused on a number of key issues in the state. But one area the governor spent little time discussing was what’s known as the Medicaid gap, which impacts an estimated 78,000 Idahoans.

But as the fate of the Affordable Care Act is murky under a Republican controlled Congress and presidency, the chance that Medicaid will be expanded in Idaho is lower than ever. That’s according to Republican state Sen. Marv Hagedorn. But he says the need to do something for this gap population remains clear.

“We have a population that’s hurting," Hagedorn says. "They’re unhealthy and they’re costing all the rest of us a lot of money because they go to the emergency room. And so…get that population healthy again, and start to bend the cost curve of what we need to do to start to reduce our insurance premiums.”

Hagedorn chaired an interim committee that looked at alternatives to Medicaid over the summer. He says he plans to introduce a bill to address the health care gap, likely by the end of January, and knows of at least one other legislator's bill in the works.

Find Frankie Barnhill on Twitter @FABarnhill

Medicaid Alternative Bills Expected During Idaho 2017 Legislature

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