{"id":16514,"date":"2013-03-25T12:17:18","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T18:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=16514"},"modified":"2013-03-25T12:23:14","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T18:23:14","slug":"last-minute-push-for-medicaid-expansion-fails-in-house-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2013\/03\/25\/last-minute-push-for-medicaid-expansion-fails-in-house-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Last-Minute Push For Medicaid Expansion Fails In House Committee"},"content":{"rendered":"

House Minority Leader John Rusche (D-Lewiston) this morning made an unorthodox push for action on a pair of bills<\/a> that would expand Medicaid eligibility in Idaho and do away with the state’s catastrophic healthcare fund. As the Idaho Statesman<\/em>‘s Dan Popkey writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston, took the rare step of using a\u00a0<\/em>parliamentary move to force a committee chairman to hold a hearing on legislation against his will. His gambit failed Monday morning, when House Health and Welfare Committee Chairman Fred Wood of Burley was supported by his GOP colleagues.\u00a0 — Idaho Statesman<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

Rep. Rusche and Chairman Wood are not at odds on the issue. Wood, like Rusche, favors opting into the Medicaid expansion<\/a> that is a central component of the federal Affordable Care Act. \u00a0<\/p>\n

During<\/del> a Friday <\/del>committee hearing, Wood said to Rep. Tom Loertscher (R-Iona), who presented the bills<\/a>: “As you well know, when it comes to myself, you’re preaching to the choir here. You and I both, had we had our way, would have introduced this January 7 or 8. But unfortunately that’s not the way the world works around here.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter said in his State of the State address<\/a> he would not seek to expand Medicaid benefits this legislative session. House Speaker Scott Bedke (R-Oakley) said last week it is too late to move forward on the issue this session.<\/p>\n

Independent reports prepared for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare predict state and county government would save money<\/a> through the optional expansion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

House Minority Leader John Rusche (D-Lewiston) this morning made an unorthodox push for action on a pair of bills that would expand Medicaid eligibility in Idaho and do away with the state’s catastrophic healthcare fund. As the Idaho Statesman‘s Dan Popkey writes: House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston, took the rare step of using a\u00a0parliamentary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[210,27,65],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16514"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}