Essential StateImpact: Top Five Stories of the Week
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Here’s a look back at the five most commented, clicked and viewed stories of the week. In case you missed something, we put them all in one handy place:
- Six Months In, Evaluating the Effects of a Medicaid Cut: Idaho’s Medicaid program is dealing with a $100 million cut. The economic and personal reverberations are more difficult to tally, but they include job loss and a change in quality of life for some of Idaho’s most vulnerable residents. “It’s inhumane to watch what’s happening to people with disabilities in our state,” said Christine Pisani, program specialist with the Idaho Council on Developmental Disabilities.
- Republican Lawmaker Considering a Tobacco Tax Increase Bill: Republican Representative Dennis Lake is working with a coalition of tobacco tax advocates to possibly try and raise Idaho’s tax. Lake and the coalition could be up against a tough opponent, big tobacco.
- Idaho’s Rising Medicaid Enrollment Drives Costs: There’s one clear reason that costs have gone up even as state lawmakers have sharpened their pencils and focused on cuts. Enrollment in Idaho’s Medicaid program has ballooned in recent years. Between 2008 and 2011, Medicaid’s average monthly enrollment grew by nearly 21 percent.
- Governor Otter Says Budget Surplus Unlikely: As monthly revenue numbers were made public this week, Governor Otter was doing more to set the tone of the upcoming legislative session. Read his letter to Idaho state agency directors here.
- Idaho’s Medicaid Program by the Numbers: Medicaid is complicated. Take a look at our charts that help visualize one of state’s most expensive programs.
