Idaho committee advances bill to require private insurers to cover supplemental breast imaging for high‑risk patients

The Idaho House Health and Welfare Committee voted to send House Bill 134 to the floor with a due‑pass recommendation after hearing hours of testimony from physicians, survivors and insurers urging coverage of supplemental breast imaging for people at heightened risk of breast cancer.

Supporters told the committee the bill would require private health plans other than Medicaid and self‑insured plans to cover supplemental breast screening — including MRI, contrast‑enhanced mammography or ultrasound — for those with clinical high‑risk factors such as BRCA1/2 mutations, prior chest radiation, very dense breast tissue or a strong family history.

The bill’s sponsors and medical witnesses said supplemental imaging finds cancers that standard mammography can miss. “If we detect one case of early breast cancer through adjunct screening, the financial cost of that screening is more than justified by the savings on chemotherapy alone,” said Dr. Barbara White, a fellowship‑trained breast radiologist practicing in Meridian. Dr. White testified that mammography detects about 70 to 80 percent of cancers, while…