View this article online: https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2012/02/16/235768.htm
With the 2012 session half over, opposition from the Legislature’s conservatives has all but ended Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter’s plan for using a $20.3 million federal grant for a state-run insurance exchange required by Congress’ health care overhaul.
Discussions between legislators, Otter and the insurance industry have shifted toward a state-run exchange created without federal money, but that’s sufficient to reassure U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials Idaho isn’t ignoring them.
This approach walks a thin line between practical and political considerations: Doing enough to keep Washington, D.C., bureaucrats from imposing a federal exchange on Idaho, while letting “Obamacare”-loathing legislators tell constituents they didn’t bend to the hated federal government.
Democrats fear spurning the federal cash is tantamount to Idaho cutting off its nose to spite its face.