Let The Decision-Making Begin: Governor’s Health Care Working Groups Kick Off Today

Molly Messick / StateImpact Idaho

Idaho Department of Insurance Director Bill Deal will lead today's meeting.

Calling all healthcare policy wonks!  The Supreme Court’s health care ruling leaves some important decisions about the law’s implementation up to the states, as StateImpact has reported.  Those questions are: Should Idaho create its own health insurance exchange, and should it opt into the Medicaid expansion that is a key facet of the Affordable Care Act?

Gov. C.L “Butch” Otter last month decided not to answer those questions unilaterally, as some Republican governors have, but to form two working groups, one for each of the main questions.

And now the day has come.  The Health Insurance Exchange Working Group meets today from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the J.R. Williams building.  StateImpact will listen in with a few big questions in mind: How will these working groups coalesce around an opinion or set of opinions?  How will Gov. Otter take in that information and come to decisions?  And, most of all, what’s at stake for Idahoans?

One point of clarification: the governor’s working groups are distinct from the Legislature’s Health Care Task Force, which met on Monday.  The groups are working on separate but parallel tracks, since the Legislature and the governor ultimately may come to different views of the questions now facing the state.

The meeting will be streamed live right here.