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Eye On Boise

Bedke suggests a different funding mechanism for Otter’s PCAP plan

To avoid a conflict between water recharge and lowering health care costs, the $30 million to fund the proposed Primary Care Access Program might not come from cigarette and tobacco taxes after all, reports Melissa Davlin of Idaho Public TV’s “Idaho Reports." At an Idaho Chamber Alliance meeting on Monday, House Speaker Scott Bedke said he has “a few problems” with Gov. Butch Otter’s proposed funding mechanism for PCAP.

Bedke, who spoke on a panel with Senate President Pro Tem Brent Hill to an audience of chamber representatives from across the state,, didn’t say he was against the PCAP proposal, which would tap $30 million in state funds to provide some primary and preventive care services to the 78,000 Idahoans who now fall into a coverage gap, but said he wants to find a different way to pay for it. He suggested the Millennium Fund, the trust fund Idaho set up from its proceeds from the nationwide tobacco settlement in 2000, and savings from the Catastrophic Health Care Fund, which pays for emergency indigent health care.

“It’s got to come from a source of money that’s not spoken for yet,” Bedke said. You can read Davlin’s full post here.



Betsy Z. Russell
Betsy Z. Russell joined The Spokesman-Review in 1991. She currently is a reporter in the Boise Bureau covering Idaho state government and politics, and other news from Idaho's state capital.

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