House committee advances bill to add medical school seats, directs state board to plan expansion

BOISE — The House Committee on Education voted Wednesday to send House Bill 368 to the floor with a due‑pass recommendation after hearing testimony from the bill sponsor, medical educators and Idaho clinicians.

Representative Dustin Manwaring, state representative for District 29 of Pocatello and the bill’s sponsor, told the committee Idaho ranks “fiftieth out of 50 states for physicians per capita” and described the legislation as a way to expand medical education options in Idaho. “With this pending legislation, Idaho will add 30 new non‑WWAMI seats leading to a net increase of 20 medical school seats bringing the total to 70,” Manwaring said. The bill also directs the State Board of Education to develop a medical education plan to guide future expansion.

The measure would phase in new seats over multiple years, with Representative Manwaring explaining the schedule as adding ten non‑WWAMI seats in year one, ten in year two offset by a 10‑seat reduction in WWAMI, and a final ten in year three, for a net gain of 20 seats. Manwaring reported current state support of nearly $8 million annually for the WWAMI program, saying “about two thirds of it or over $5,000,000 a year goes to the University of Washington.” He characterized the bill as a means to diversify where that money is invested and to give Idaho more influence over admissions, clerkships and training locations.

University of Utah School of Medicine…