Idaho Medicaid Expansion
The Idaho Medicaid expansion initiative OVERWHELMINGLY passed in 2018 with more than 60% of the vote statewide and 52.3% of the vote in Bingham County.
The Idaho Republican legislature refused to pass Medicaid expansion for several years, but the landslide vote in 2018 proved that the Idaho Republican legislature was horribly out of touch with Idaho voters.
Medicaid expansion was a no-brainer from the beginning. The federal government provides 90%-100% of the funds for Medicaid expansion. Many Republicans across the US supported Medicaid expansion, including former Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Medicaid expansion will help strengthen the critical healthcare industry in Idaho while improving the health and productivity of tens of thousands of Idahoans. If people are too sick to work, they can't pay their fair share of taxes!
Medicaid expansion is also critical for rural Idaho. The small towns and small cities of Idaho need more healthcare providers. In fact, healthcare in rural Idaho is hurting so badly that the Idaho Rural Health Care Access Program (RHCAP) provides grants of $35,000 and the Idaho Rural Physician Incentive Program (RPIP) provides physicians up to $100,000 to work in rural areas. Medicaid expansion will provide even more federal funds than these programs to support rural healthcare in Idaho.
In small rural communities in Bingham County and across Idaho, the public school system and healthcare industries ANCHOR the local economies. Medicaid expansion allows more small town patients to see their local doctors. When a doctor office relocates from small rural communities to larger cities, then the rural tax base and purchasing power shrink, creating a negative downward spiral.
I stand with more than 60% of Idahoans in supporting Medicaid expansion, whereas Julianne Young does not. In 2019, Julianne Young tried to introduce legislation to repeal Medicaid expansion.
For more information, please read:
https://www.reclaimidaho.org/our-story