Opposition from House conservatives has ended Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter's plans to use a $20.3 million federal grant for a state-run Idaho insurance exchange required by the federal health care overhaul.
Instead, discussions between legislators, Otter and the insurance industry have shifted toward a state exchange created without federal money, but that's still sufficient to reassure U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials that Idaho isn't blowing them off.
They're walking a thin line between keeping a federal exchange from being imposed on Idaho that could disadvantage the state's insurers, while still letting "Obamacare"-loathing legislators tell constituents they didn't bend to Washington, D.C.
"My major concern personally is accepting federal funding," said Rep. Lynn Luker, R-Boise. "It would lock us in to what they want us to do."
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Consequently, Sen. Dean Cameron, R-Rupert, and an insurance agent, says a smaller, undetermined sum - scratched from somewhere in Idaho's tight budget - will likely be sufficient to at least get started. He said the important thing for Idaho is to not cede an exchange to the federal government, whose version he believes will disadvantage Idaho insurers and offer products that are more-expensive for consumers.
"It would make it easier to use the federal funds," Cameron said. "But I haven't spent much time thinking about that, because I have to deal with the realities of the day."
House Minority Leader John Rusche, D-Lewiston, and a former health insurance industry executive, said letting the federal money slip through Idaho's fingers simply to win House conservatives' support is a costly political bargain.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2012/02/14/1993986/idaho-likely-to-spurn-federal.html
Hat tip: Idaho Statesman
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