After years of relentless growth, Idaho lawmakers received a budget request for the state’s Medicaid program Tuesday that’s nearly flat in state funds, and just a 7.6 percent increase overall - even though the program is expected to add roughly 70,000 new recipients next year…
Here's a news item from the Associated Press: BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Attorneys for the nation's largest private prison company have asked a federal judge in Idaho to throw out a lawsuit from inmates who say the company uses gangs to run a Boise-area prison.…
1s tDistrict Idaho Congressman Raul Labrador was scheduled to meet with House Speaker John Boehner today, but Idaho Statesman reporter Dan Popkey reports that both are mum about what was said – or if the meeting even happened as planned. Meanwhile, Boise State University political…
Here's a news item from the Associated Press: LEWISTON, Idaho (AP) — Add Twin Falls and Lewiston to the list of Idaho cities to ban discrimination based on a person's sexual orientation. City councils in both cities voted Monday night for language adding sexual orientation…
What if Idaho’s Legislature only met for a short, maximum 60-day session in even-numbered years, to set a budget, and then held longer sessions of up to 150 days every other year? That’s the proposal from new Sen. Branden Durst, D-Boise, who introduced a resolution…
Idaho's annual Martin Luther King Jr.-Idaho Human Rights Day celebration in the state Capitol on Monday will feature the Rev. Percy "Happy" Watkins, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Spokane, as keynote speaker; he'll perform his rendition of King's "I Have a Dream" speech,…
The first-year experience for the Department of Health & Welfare’s “Money Follows the Person” program to move patients from institutional care to home and community care, where appropriate, has resulted in 64 patients making such moves, Paul Leary, Medicaid administrator, told JFAC this morning. Sixteen…
The first bill to come out of committee and hit the House floor this session has stalled. HB 1, the annual IRS tax code conformity bill, was voted out of the House Revenue & Taxation Committee last Thursday and sent directly to the 2ndReading Calendar…
Overall, Gov. Butch Otter is recommending $476.7 million in state general funds for Medical Assistance Services, or Medicaid, next year, which is nearly flat - just a 0.5 percent increase from this year. Total funds, at $2.0667 billion, reflect a 7.6 percent increase, largely because…
Idaho’s Medicaid program adds up to a total of $2.06 billion, between state and federal funds, Medicaid division administrator Paul Leary told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee this morning. It takes up 81.4 percent of the Department of Health & Welfare budget. But 96.4 percent of…
Again this morning, the half of JFAC members who are first-timers on the joint budget panel have lots of questions about the budgets they’re being presented. Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood, asked, “What is the child support program? What is its purpose?” H&W officials explained that…
Idaho Division of Welfare Administrator Russ Barron explained the MAGI, or Modified Adjusted Gross Income calculations, that Idaho must comply with under changes in the national health care reform law. Those change the way eligibility is calculated for the existing Medicaid program, and likely will…
Idaho is one of just five states that requires all food stamp recipients to comply with its child support program, which enforces child support orders against non-custodial parents, to reduce the need for public support. But budget holdbacks in 2010 that cut 12 positions have…