House Health & Welfare delays consideration of health care legislation to Mon., pending new plan
The House Health & Welfare Committee has voted to pull two proposed bills from its agenda this morning, both from House Majority Caucus Chairman Rep. John VanderWoude, R-Meridian, regarding health coverage for the “gap” population, and instead consider the issue again Monday morning with a new proposal. One of today’s proposed bills would have launched a study committee; the other a “health care data collection grant program,” an idea House Republicans have been kicking around to provide a block grant of say, $5 million, to Idaho’s community health centers next year to enhance services to people in the gap population and collect data on how many are out there.
Rep. Kelley Packer, R-McCammon, urged the committee, “Let’s quit throwing money at non-solutions, let’s quit studying this … (and) hopefully do the right thing on Monday.”
Rep. Fred Wood, R-Burley, the committee chairman, said, “We have a while. … We need to see what the other alternatives may or may not be. … The Legislature is now talking about what we should do as opposed to whether we should be covering this gap population. And the only vehicle we have is an old ’49 Chevy. And she just won’t go very fast. … It’s not that we’re on the wrong track, we’re on the right track.” But movement may be slow, he said. “Let’s not paint ourselves into any corner, to where we start getting into a fight within the House of Representatives about how we’re going to help, and therefore stumble again. I don’t want to see that.”
Rep. Eric Redman, R-Athol, said, “I don’t want to leave here without getting something accomplished. … We might not have the same ideas or opinions, but I think we all want to get something accomplished.” Other committee members echoed that.
Wood said, ,”We will have a meeting on Monday morning. … We will take up an RS or two on this topic. What they may look like I don’t know at this time. But I commit to you that we will have a hearing and we’ll send it directly to the 2nd Reading Calendar and we will have time to get it across to the Senate and they can hear it, if in fact we can get it across our floor. That is what will happen. … We may have to start at 7 o’clock on Monday morning. We’ll get it done on Monday.”
