In some states governors and legislators have been distressed over their recent budget cuts, which in various ways and to various degrees have hit nationwide. Not so in Idaho, where Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter maintains that’s the right way to go.
Idaho, he said, was a “model for what the nation ought to do … “There wasn’t anybody thrown out in the streets. People became more responsible for their own needs.”
As to how the rhetoric translates into specifics, the Spokesman Review‘s Betsy Russell, in noting the interview, also took the trouble to spell out some what Otter was talking about:
“Idaho cut $34 million from its Medicaid program this year, including new co-payment requirements, big new assessments on hospitals and other care providers, and trims in provider reimbursements. There were also cuts to services: More than 42,000 poor or disabled Idahoans lost their non-emergency dental coverage on July 1; dozens of patients are being discharged from nursing homes to home-based care; treatments like chiropractic care, podiatry, vision coverage and hearing aids were cut; and the state is revising programs to move to more of a managed-care approach. A federal lawsuit has halted one move, to a single residential habilitation agency for developmentally disabled patients in certified family homes, that would have driven dozens of existing agencies out of business and drastically reduced oversight of the treatment of those patients.”
The Idaho model in practice.
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