Idaho Governor Butch Otter has thrown his support behind a state ballot initiative to expand Medicaid. 
The Republican governor this week endorsed Proposition 2, which if passed on November 6th would provide healthcare for the 62,000 Idahoans who fall into the state’s health coverage gap – those who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, but not enough for subsidized coverage through the state’s exchange. Otter says allowing the healthcare coverage gap to persist any longer is not an option, adding that the state cannot continue to let hardworking Idahoans go without healthcare.
The Affordable Care Act envisioned every state would expand Medicaid eligibility to its poor, but a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling made it optional, and many Republican-run states, including Idaho, haven’t expanded it. The GOP-dominant Legislature has debated the issue since then but hasn’t passed anything, and this year the group Reclaim Idaho got enough signatures to put it on the ballot. Since then, some GOP lawmakers have backed the measure.
Proposition 2 has also won support from the Idaho Primary Care Association Idaho Education Association, the Idaho School Boards Association, the Idaho Sheriff’s Association, and the Idaho chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, among others. (Idahoans For Healthcare)
