Bill Reorganizing Idaho’s Indigent Care Fails in Committee

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — An effort to reduce the cost of Idaho's indigent care system by an estimated $16 million died in committee on Tuesday.

The Senate Health and Welfare Committee voted 5-3 to kill a measure where only Idaho's poorest would have been eligible for county indigent medical care. The bill would have kicked out anyone who qualified for subsidized health insurance on the state exchange, or roughly 40 percent of the program's participants.

Republican Sen. John Tippets praised the bill's intentions, but argued that he could not vote aye because the legislation would shift the high costs of health care to providers.

Currently, the state's indigent care system has counties pay the catastrophic medical bills of patients who can't pay their own bills in five years. The state pays anything above $11,000.