House kills Medicaid expansion

House lawmakers on Friday, the final day of the 2016 legislative session, killed a proposal to explore Medicaid expansion in Idaho.

The proposal was rejected on a 55-12-3 party-line vote. Instead, House Speaker Scott Bedke said lawmakers will study the issue over the summer to finalize a plan for the 2017 legislative session. The goal is to come up with a proposal to allow the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare to apply for a Medicaid waiver to provide health insurance for people who have incomes below 100 percent of the federal poverty line.

The bi-partisan committee will begin meeting in May.

"I want my dream team on this," Bedke said.

This means lawmakers will wait one more year before addressing the estimated 78,000 Idahoans without health coverage because they either don't qualify for Medicaid, the health care program designed to cover the poor, or make too much for a subsidy.

Tensions rose the final days of the session as legislative leaders worked on possible Medicaid expansion options. Splits between the Republican supermajority and rifts between the Senate and House resulted in very little legislation moving forward.

A last-minute bill was stitched together by Senate lawmakers on Thursday after they completely revamped a minor House bill that would have only allocated more funding for studying the so-called Medicaid gap population. The Senate then adjourned for the year. However, the complete transformation was too much of an uphill battle for the Republicans to stomach in the House.

Despite the bill’s failure, Rep. Luke Malek, R-Coeur d'Alene, said the Legislature sent a clear message this session that they want to do something on addressing the Medicaid gap.

That sentiment has not always been clear in the past.

"At the start of this session, we didn't have a prayer. But we almost got something done," Malek said. "And that's fantastic."

The bill that was killed was very similar to a bill Malek drafted two weeks ago, but never got a hearing. Malek said he hoped it would pass but voted against the bill as well when he realized there were not enough votes to pass it.

“When we suspended the rules to vote on the bill we had to get three-quarters of the House to vote for it,” he said. “That is 47 votes and we couldn’t get there.

“The good news is that we have a huge consensus to get something done next year.”

In fact, Reps. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, Eric Redman, R-Athol, Don Cheatham,R-Post Falls, Ron Mendive, R-Post Falls, and Kathy Sims, R-Coeur d’Alene, voted against the bill. So did Sens. Mary Souza, R-Coeur d’Alene, Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, and Steve Vick, R-Coeur d’Alene.

Gov. Butch Otter has the option to take executive action on allowing a Medicaid waiver, but the Republican governor has declined to comment if he will use this power.

Bedke said he was dismayed the Senate left town without considering forming a rarely-used panel to continue working on the Medicaid expansion options. Known as a conference committee, the panel has been used in the past to find solutions on impasses between the House and Senate.

Yet Bedke added it may not be all that surprising the option was taken off the table after last year's highly contentious conference committee on transportation funding which left multiple Senate leaders accusing the House of refusing to compromise.

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers remained hopeful progress had been made despite passing nothing on the subject.

House Democrats countered that another year of studying the issue is unnecessary.

"It will be a shame to wait another year," Senate Minority Leader Michelle Stennett said. "We should have taken care of it this year."