Rep. Janice McGeachin, R-Idaho Falls, moved to send HB 117, the health care nullification bill, to the full House with a recommendation that it pass. "There is nothing in the federal law that requires the states to implement this federal law," said McGeachin, chair of the House Health & Welfare Committee. She said she learned about that at a health care conference in Washington, D.C. in November. "Even if our federal courts determine that this law is constitutional," she said, "there's still nothing in the federal law that requires us as a state to help implement the law."  The federal government could withhold funds, she said, but without the state's cooperation, it'd have to figure out how to implement the law on its own.

"I want the people in the state of Idaho to be able to receive the health care that they need," she said. "I'm also interested in reducing the cost of that health care so that more people can receive the health care." But she said in her view, Medicare and Medicaid today spend too much because of excessive regulation. "We need to be doing more in the state, I recognize that, for our people, and we're having those conversations right now," McGeachin said. "But this is not the way to go, to expand on this broken system of Medicare and Medicaid. ... We need as states ... to have the flexibility to solve this problem on our own."

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