Batt Forms Task Force On Medicaid Reform

Gov. Phil Batt on Tuesday organized a Medicaid task force charged with recommending reforms of the more than milliondollar-a-day health care system for the poor.

“The Medicaid Reform Advisory Committee is going to have to review every mandate, no matter the origin,” Batt said, “and they’re going to have to do it without the notion that the sky is the limit.”

Patterned after the Welfare Reform Task Force that produced a 44-point program essentially adopted by lawmakers last year, the Medicaid panel will hold hearings around the state over the next several months before presenting its plan to Batt in the fall.

Like the recommendations of the welfare reform task force, the effort could be undermined by the gridlock in Washington, D.C., on legislation enabling state reform efforts to move ahead. But Batt, questioning the commitment of both Congress and the White House to changing the Medicaid system, said federal inaction will have no effect on the new panel’s work.

“Idaho can and must develop its own solution to the Medicaid problem,” he said. “We would like federal guidance, but we can’t wait for it.”

With 88,000 recipients receiving more than $370 million in state and federal health care assistance during this budget year, Batt said the state has to be allowed to make the kind of adjustments that will stop the annual double-digit percentage escalation in the taxpayers’ commitment.

Twin Falls car dealer and civic leader Roy Raymond will head the group. Kootenai County commissioner Dick Compton also will serve on the committee.

“I said I’d be honored to help but I don’t know a heck of a lot about Medicaid,” Compton said. “They said, that’s exactly what we want.”

Batt named 13 others to the committee he said eventually would total 18.

, DataTimes