Gov. Butch Otter's Medicaid expansion working group is receiving a report from consulting group Milliman this morning on the potential impacts to the state. “On a purely financial basis, it would make sense to expand,” Justin Birrell of Milliman told the working group. “You save $6.5 million if you expand. It would cost you $284 million if you don't.” That's over a 10-1/2 year period starting in the second half of state fiscal year 2014. Added the firm's Ben Diederich, “The state and local offsets are what's very unique to Idaho.”
That's because of how Idaho currently funds health care for the indigent; through the state's medical indigency/Catastrophic Health Care program, the money comes entirely from the state general fund and from local property tax money. This afternoon, the working group is scheduled to decide on its recommendation to Otter on what the state should do; under the national health care reform law, states have the option of expanding their Medicaid programs largely at federal expense.
Betsy Z. Russell covers Idaho news from The Spokesman-Review's bureau in Boise.
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