Idaho overwhelmingly votes to expand Medicaid; Proposition #2 Yes vote tops 60%!

Vot­ers in Ida­ho are giv­ing a big thumbs up to a bal­lot mea­sure to expand Med­ic­aid across the Gem State to cov­er low income adults and peo­ple with­out children.

With 747 of 959 precincts report­ing, the bipar­ti­san coali­tion spon­sor­ing Propo­si­tion #2 had the sup­port of 61.4% of Ida­hoans, with only 38.6% opposed.

The Gem State’s Repub­li­can dom­i­nat­ed Leg­is­la­ture has for years stub­born­ly refused to expand Med­ic­aid on ide­o­log­i­cal grounds, despite pleas to do so from the state’s med­ical and health ser­vices com­mu­ni­ty. So a group of Democ­rats and rea­son­able Repub­li­cans teamed up to take their case direct­ly to the people.

And they found a very respon­sive elec­torate.

As the ear­ly results came in favor­ing expan­sion, Toni Law­son of the Ida­ho Hos­pi­tal Asso­ci­a­tion said, “It’s been a long time com­ing now.”

Med­ic­aid was on the bal­lot in a few oth­er states Tues­day night, but Idaho’s sit­u­a­tion is unique, she not­ed. Ida­ho already has a tax-fund­ed sys­tem to pay for cat­a­stroph­ic health care on behalf of poor Ida­hoans and could use that mon­ey instead to pay for Medicaid.

“The fund­ing is there, we just need to allo­cate it in the appro­pri­ate man­ner,” she said.

Rur­al hos­pi­tals say Med­ic­aid expan­sion would help them sur­vive, as their peers around the coun­try have been forced to close.

Incom­ing Ida­ho Gov­er­nor Brad Lit­tle did not take a posi­tion on Propo­si­tion #2, but has said he will imple­ment Med­ic­aid expan­sion were the mea­sure to pass (and it has). Out­go­ing Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Butch Otter, mean­while, gave Propo­si­tion #2 an enthu­si­as­tic endorse­ment and urged a yes vote on the measure.

Ida­ho’s Leg­is­la­ture still has to appro­pri­ate the mon­ey to ensure that Med­ic­aid expan­sion hap­pens. But giv­en the over­whelm­ing pas­sage of Propo­si­tion #2 and Gov­er­nor-elect Lit­tle’s pledge to imple­ment the will of the vot­ers, it’s rea­son­able to assume that it won’t be much longer before access to health­care gets bet­ter for many of Ida­ho’s least afflu­ent res­i­dents. That’s a huge win.

Months ago, we took a posi­tion in strong sup­port of Ida­ho Propo­si­tion #2. We’re absolute­ly delight­ed to see it pass­ing by such a large margin.

We’ve always believed here at NPI that progress is pos­si­ble even in the red­dest of places. Even con­ser­v­a­tive vot­ers have the capa­bil­i­ty to rea­son using the log­ic of pro­gres­sive val­ues. We sim­ply have to give them oppor­tu­ni­ties to choose a pro­gres­sive path. We are thank­ful that so many in Ida­ho saw the wis­dom of expand­ing Med­ic­aid and tak­ing bet­ter care of one anoth­er. Not only is it the just and moral thing to do, but it is also the fis­cal­ly respon­si­ble thing to do.