Boise State Public Radio reporter Adam Cotterell contributed to this report.
On November 6, voters will decide if Propositions 1, 2 and 3, Idaho’s controversial education laws, stay or go.
In 2011, the Idaho Legislature passed a package of three laws that made sweeping changes to the state’s education system.
The laws were introduced and championed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna and are known as Students Come First, though opponents call them the Luna Laws.
Betty Murphy staffed the Democratic office in downtown Hailey last week.
Helen Stone and Ben Schepps of Hailey watched Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan face off.
Blaine County Democrats register voters and distribute signs and literature from their small office in Hailey.
Suzan Stommel is a co-founder of Blaine County Republican Women.
Vonnie Olsen has called the small Blaine County town of Carey home for nearly 50 years.
There aren’t many places in deep red Idaho where you’re likely to hear the kind of proud introduction Gini Ballou offered up not long after we met.
“I’m Gini Ballou,” she said. “My mother stopped to vote for John F. Kennedy on her way to the hospital to have me. And the greatest gift I ever got for my birthday was the ’08 election, when I was given President Obama on my birthday.”
United Press International reports Idaho is the best place to be a physician.
The annual rankings compiled by Physicians Practice say Idaho is the best place to practice because of it’s “low rate of disciplinary actions against doctors.”
The Physicians Practice’s Best States to Practice ranking found Idaho, Alabama, Texas, Nevada and South Carolina were the top places for doctors to practice by Physicians Practice, which provides physician practice management advice to more than 150,000 physicians and their practice administrators throughout the United States. Continue Reading →
Meridian-based Western States Equipment uses training dollars in part to pay for its own training school.
The state-sponsored program to train workers who are in danger of being laid-off is successful less than half the time. That’s according to a report released by the Idaho Department of Labor, the agency that oversees the workforce development training fund.
The grant program reimburses businesses that apply for help with the cost of training its existing employees or new hires. It’s paid for by a three percent tax on businesses. To qualify, a company must pay at least $12 per hour and include health benefits. A majority of their product or service must be sold out of their region, or be in the health care field.
The department’s report looks at the workforce development training fund from 2000-2009. It finds of the 160 contracts approved over that time period, 40 percent were rated ‘effective’, while 33 percent were ‘ineffective’. Continue Reading →
StateImpactreported in April that funding for the Idaho Community Development Block Grant Program has been cut by a quarter in recent years, leaving the state with about $10 million this year. When the first of four rounds of applications came in early this spring, Idaho communities already had requested nearly $9 million. Continue Reading →
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Many states don’t have enough doctors. As we’ve been reporting, Idaho has fewer physicians per capita than every state in the nation except Mississippi.
And the shortage of doctors will likely get worse before it gets better, as physicians from the baby boom generation get ready to retire. At least one-third of all doctors in each of the 50 states are 55 or older. In Idaho, nearly 42 percent of physicians are over the age of 55.
Emilie Ritter Saunders / StateImpact Idaho
Click on the image to enlarge. Data source: American Medical Association's 2012 publication 'Physician Characteristics and Distribution in the U.S.'
University of Washington researcher Susan Skillman says the aging workforce means retirement will soon take its toll. “We have great concern about whether the number of providers we have now can be replaced,” Skillman says, “let alone meet this growing demand” for health care services. Continue Reading →
A physician's assistant checks out a patient at a community health center. More than 236,000 Idahoans are currently enrolled in Medicaid, a health care program for low income Americans.
Idaho has spent at least $195,000 to study how expanding Medicaid could impact people and the state’s budget.
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has contracted with two out-of-state consulting firms, Utah-based Leavitt Partners and Seattle-based Milliman.
Under the federal health reform law, which was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, states can decide whether to expand their Medicaid programs to include people living at 138 percent of the poverty line. Estimates show, an expansion would add between 97,000 and 111,000 to the health care program in Idaho. More than 236,000 Idahoans are currently on Medicaid. Continue Reading →
Home construction has picked up in Idaho even as foreclosures persist.
Idaho saw more foreclosure filings from July through September than it did in the previous quarter of the year, according to RealtyTrac data released today. The number of filings inched up by 5.6 percent from the second to third quarters.
Idaho has the 14th highest foreclosure rate in the nation, with one of every 294 housing units experiencing a foreclosure filing over the more recent quarter. While that might not sound great, the state’s housing market has seen substantial improvement over the last year, based on RealtyTrac’s numbers and other statistics.
The number of Idaho properties experiencing foreclosure filings has decreased by 45 percent compared to a year ago, RealtyTrac says.
Ada County Republicans arrived hours early to attend the March caucus.
The Ada County GOP has beenstingy with contributions to local candidates in the run-up to the Nov. 6 election. When asked how much the Ada County Republicans have been able to spend on races so far, treasurer Darrel McRoberts gives a dejected response.
“Not one penny this year,” he says. “We haven’t been able to. We had to pay it all to Taco Bell.” Continue Reading →
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