BOISE – The Idaho Senate debated and rejected Medicaid expansion on Thursday, as Senate Democrats pushed the plan in an amendment.

In years of debate over how to help the 78,000 Idahoans who now fall into a coverage gap – they make too much to qualify for the state’s limited Medicaid program, but not enough to be eligible for subsidized coverage through Idaho’s state insurance exchange – it was the first time the issue had been taken up in either house’s chamber. In the past, the proposal has never gotten out of committee.

The Democrats’ effort was Sen. Marv Hagedorn’s $10 million gap coverage bill that would draw on Millennium Fund money. That money comes from Idaho’s share of a nationwide tobacco settlement.

It would fund some care for a portion of the gap group. But the amendment failed on a voice vote, and minor amendments favored by Hagedorn, R-Meridian, and Sen. Steven Thayn, R-Emmett, were adopted instead.

Sen. Janie Ward-Engelking, D-Boise, said, “If we were to use the Millennium Fund money, and we leveraged it with Medicaid expansion, we could leverage the $10 million and bring in $90 million from the expansion – that would be $100 million that we could use to cover this gap population.”