Medicaid Cut Wins Panel’S Ok

A plan to cut back Idaho’s Medicaid program to match health insurance benefits offered to state employees won approval in a legislative subcommittee Friday on a 3-2 vote.

The committee had killed the plan on a 2-2 vote a day earlier, but its chairman, Sen. Robert Lee, R-Rexburg, said he wanted to hold another meeting to try to get more members to attend. And it worked.

Rep. Randy Hansen, R-Pocatello, joined the group for the brief Friday session, which was not announced to the public. He joined Lee and Sen. Mel Richardson, R-Idaho Falls, to approve the plan, over the objections of Democrats Sen. Marguerite McLaughlin of Orofino and Rep. Bert Marley of Pocatello.

McLaughlin and Marley argued that Medicaid serves people who have nowhere else to turn, and that they’re a different population with different needs than state employees. Medicaid, for example, pays for people in nursing homes who have no other resources. State employees have a limit of 30 days a year of nursing home coverage.

Lee’s subcommittee has been studying ways to trim Idaho’s soaring Medicaid budget, and will report to the Legislature’s budget committee on Monday with its recommendations. Medicaid is the program that provides health care to the state’s poorest and disabled citizens.