A panel of Idaho lawmakers looking for ways to pay for the state’s expansion of Medicaid is considering eliminating county indigent health care funds, dipping into money collected from court fees, or tapping cash from a tobacco settlement reached nearly two decades ago.
Those proposals and others were discussed Friday by the interim Legislative Committee, tasked with coming up with ways to pay for the voter-approved Medicaid expansion, which will provide Medicaid to people earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
One idea eliminates a county-paid health care fund and instead have counties pay that money to the state for Medicaid expansion. Currently, impoverished Idaho residents who lack health insurance coverage and don’t qualify for Medicaid can ask counties for help paying for catastrophic health care. That program costs the combined Idaho counties roughly $20 million a year, but lawmakers expect that amount to drop once Medicaid is expanded to more Idaho residents. Just how much it will drop, however, is up in the air, after lawmakers passed bills adding work requirements, hurdles for family planning services ,and other so-called “sideboards” to Medicaid expansion, though those components weren’t part of the voter-approved initiative.
The sideboards require special permission from the federal government, and it’s not yet clear if the requests will gain approval.
Also up for debate is whether the state should have counties pay for a state program at all.
Another option is pulling the cash from the state’s Millennium Fund, a pot of money created in 2000 after Idaho and other states sued tobacco companies for misleading the public about the dangers of smoking. (AP)
