Idaho Senate panel advances bill to reshape Medicaid with work requirements, managed care and rule changes

The Idaho Senate Health and Welfare Committee on a voice vote advanced House Bill 345, the Medicaid Affordability and Healthcare Access Act, sending it to the Senate floor with a due-pass recommendation.

Representative Jordan Redmond (R.-Kootenai County) introduced the bill and told the committee the measure is intended to contain Medicaid costs while maintaining coverage. “This bill truly does offer immediate savings to the taxpayers as well as substantial long term savings and stability to the Medicaid budget,” Redmond said, adding that the bill passed the House committee 13–2 and the House floor 61–9 before coming to the Senate.

The measure would repeal a provision from last year’s House Bill 3398 and replace it with a package of reforms the sponsor described as reforms to the entire Medicaid program, not only expansion. Key elements described by Redmond include: a move to comprehensive Medicaid managed care with a capitated rate intended to create budget certainty; authorization for modest Medicaid cost-sharing; practice-authority protections for providers; site-neutral payments that limit facility-type upcharges for procedures; special protections for federally qualified health centers; faster temporary-rule authority for the Department of Health and Welfare; and an expansion-population work requirement. The bill text cited several statutory or rule places (for example sections described in committee as 56-2202, 56-2203, 56-2205, 56-2267) and asks the department to seek…