Gap coverage panel wraps up meeting; co-chairs optimistic on action in coming session

The Legislature’s working group on Idaho’s health coverage gap has wrapped up its meeting today and set its final session for Nov. 22 at 9 a.m., when it will review its final report to the Legislature.

“We’ve got to figure out a way that we provide services for Idahoans and keep them healthy,” said Sen. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, the panel’s Senate co-chair. “Keeping them healthy is going to reduce our costs.”

Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, the panel’s House co-chair, said, “There is no magic wand.” Loertscher said, “For the director of Health & Welfare, Director Armstrong, my hat is off to him for coming up with the SHIP experiment, which changes some of the things that we’ve seen with Medicaid in the past.  And if we are going to do anything along the lines of expansion of Medicaid, it has to involve some elements of the SHIP program – in other words, we have got to move to managed care. We have got to do the things that are working in the SHIP program for all of Medicaid. … It only makes sense to do that.”

Loertscher added that in his view, “We are woefully short in our programs that deal with mental health and disabilities.” Any solution will have to address that, he said, including relieving the burden for those services from county medical indigency programs. “We have to step up to the plate.” Loertscher, who helped create the current state Catastrophic Fund, said he believes that “any movement in the direction of Medicaid expansion has to include disposing of the county medically indigent program, as well as the CAT fund.” And he said that should mean counties reduce their property tax levies, cutting local residents’ property taxes.

After the meeting, both Loertscher and Hagedorn said they’re optimistic that lawmakers will take action to close the coverage gap in their upcoming 2017 legislative session. “The chances of it are better than they’ve ever been,” Loertscher said. “However, you have to understand that we are only 10 of the gang here. If everyone in the Legislature had been sitting here and seen the discussion and the stuff we’ve talked about, it would be much more simple to do.”

Asked if the lawmakers are likely to opt for a primary care-only program like Gov. Butch Otter’s unsuccessful PCAP proposal last year, Hagedorn said no. “I think it’s got to be comprehensive in order to get the votes,” he said.

Loertscher said, “I think what Idaho legislators really are looking for is an Idaho solution, not a federal solution.”

Said Hagedorn: “My intention is to put a bill together, hopefully with the assistance of a lot of people in the committee. We all agree something has to happen.”