There will be no Medicaid expansion next year?

This was going to be the longest of long shots. Idaho's Republican-led Legislature was going to be dragged kicking and screaming into implementing the Obamacare reform that offered health care insurance to the working poor - even if the feds were covering virtually all of the costs.

Then came the election.

Next January, Rep. John Rusche, D-Lewiston, and Sen. Dan Schmidt, D-Moscow, won't be at the Statehouse, appealing to their colleagues' collective conscience to do something.

Both physician-legislators were defeated.

Meanwhile, President-elect Donald Trump and a Republican majority in Congress have the opportunity to "repeal and replace" Obamacare.

"I think that takes the pressure off the Legislature," House Majority Caucus Chairman John Vander Woude told the Tribune's William L. Spence. More here.