House panel sends bill to phase out WWAMI partnership and direct new medical-education partnerships to floor

House Education Committee members voted 9–5 to send House Bill 176 to the full House with a due-pass recommendation after extended testimony and deliberation over the future of Idaho’s WWAMI medical-education arrangement.

House Bill 176, sponsored by Representative Dustin Manwaring, would remove statutory references to the WWAMI (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) regional medical-education program and direct the State Board of Education to designate at least two medical-education programs in Idaho or adjacent Mountain Time Zone states. The bill directs that no new slots be reserved for Idaho students in WWAMI after the 2026–27 academic year; current WWAMI students would continue under existing arrangements through completion. The draft requires that a majority of clinical (years 3–4) training for Idaho-supported medical students occur in Idaho by the 2029–30 academic year and sets a not-to-exceed cap of 60 seats (the University of Idaho currently has 40 WWAMI seats and the University of Utah has long held 10 seats for Idaho students, per testimony).

Representative Manwaring framed the bill as an effort to align Idaho medical training with state needs: “Idaho does not have its own state run medical school,” he…