The Idaho legislature and our Governor (‘hi Brad!’) have decided Idaho would be best served by moving the billions of dollars we spend on Medicaid into a ‘managed care’ model. This is going to be an adventure. Keep in mind, Idaho is small potatoes.
We have almost the lowest costs per Medicaid patient in the country. But now we are going to negotiate some great deal with a managed care company to take over how these dollars are spent. They will see us as small, maybe even green potatoes.
So, we are going into this negotiation with our best minds and best data to review all the proposals in this $5B (that’s a billion) deal. That’s a THIRD of the total state budget.
Just what exactly do we want out of this? Government (meaning us taxpayers) is about to make some very wise (we hope) negotiation with some big (I mean VERY BIG) company about how our dollars should be spent on health care for the folks who can’t get work sponsored health insurance.
Do we have the data on how our current system is working? Do we have any idea if our Medicaid dollars are spent wisely? Do you, the Idaho citizen with employer provided health care have any idea if your health care dollars are spent wisely? I’m going to vote a “nay” on all those.
But we should be voting. And we should be voting on our healthcare. We don’t hear anything about healthcare from Trump or X or CNN.
The Idaho Freedom Foundation weighed in, good for them. They gave this bill a +3. That means all the folks you Idaho Republicans elected would vote for it to improve their scores and they would get reelected.
But the IFF had some reasonable criticisms. And some horse pucky. They had to struggle to get to their +3. Maybe somebody’s pulling their strings.
They did acknowledge that the data, the details once the contract is signed become proprietary. This only got one demerit.
Maybe we are all comfortable with this nowadays. Google knows what I search. Facebook knows my ‘friends’. Maybe that’s just the way we are going. Corporates own our data, and we are just pogues.
And they sell us more stuff. And sell our data. They get rich, and we keep working.
I find it hard to believe Idaho conservatives embraced this model. But the IFF did. And so did our elected representatives.
We can all shrug since it’s just Medicaid we are talking about here. Sorry. Look again. You folks with ‘real’ health insurance are also in this game.
Big companies decide based on the size of the potatoes.
Idaho has just about the lowest cost for private health insurance too. I already told you our Medicaid health insurance costs are at the bottom, remember? Don’t you feel like a small potato?
I’m sorry, but we should be a bit proud. We have no bloated bureaucratic institution controlling these costs. We just have good doctors, good hospitals, good communities.
I’ll admit here, I think we should have spent just a touch more on collecting the data and managing our providers. We could help them know the best ways to treat their patients. But fundamentally, health care providers in Idaho seem to be doing a pretty good job.
Sorry, I just want better.
But now all this effort in the Medicaid sector will be turned over to the lowest bidder. And they will get to keep some of our taxpayer dollars to reward their investors and CEO’s. Maybe your IRA will get a bump.
But will our state be healthier?
We will never know. We aren’t paying attention to that. We’re just fumbling along and voting like the IFF tells us to.
We are about to send state dollars out the door, and we may be no healthier for it. Thanks to you conservatives. Is this conservative?
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