Will Medicaid Expansion Bankrupt Idaho?

It was back in 2015 that we along with the Idaho Freedom Foundation warned Idahoans about the problems with containing costs if Medicaid Expansion was approved in our state. It was eventually passed by referendum and is now chewing up tax dollars beyond belief. Why are we subsidizing those who are capable of paying for health insurance by allowing them to enroll in our Medicaid expansion program?

The simple reason would be no one is keeping track of who is and who isn’t eligible, which would be the job of our Department of Health and Welfare. We certainly do not want to see anyone’s life in jeopardy because they do not have access to needed healthcare. By the same token, we are tired of seeing the leeches who are sucking off the government teat and eating up our tax dollars as the Medicaid expansion rolls continue to swell to levels never before imagined.

According to a recent report this month by the Idaho Freedom Foundation which can be found HERE, they stated that “The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (IDHW) estimates that there are nearly 154,000 on the rolls whose eligibility is unknown. The department estimates that the population of Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) participants is 450,000. This means that nearly 1 in 5 Idahoans are on Medicaid, with 1 in 3 of those participants potentially ineligible for the benefits they receive.” Do you still wonder why your property taxes are continuing to increase each and every year while our infrastructure is being stretched to its furthest limits?

With Medicaid expansion growing at such a rapid rate, it begs the question of who is benefitting from this huge increase in participants. Common sense would suggest that it is the major hospitals that are the most likely recipients of monetary value coming from this huge expansion. If this is the case, we have to wonder why it is that our major hospitals have been laying off clerical personnel and outsourcing these jobs out of the country. Why is it that we have so many Traveling Nurses being employed by these medical facilities who we hear are even being housed in buildings owned by them that are tax exempt from property taxes? Why aren’t they hiring local nurses and clerical personnel who are subsidizing their tax-exempt status with their property taxes? These are the same medical facilities that received tens of millions of dollars from the federal government during the Covid Crisis and we still haven’t a clue as to where those dollars went. One has to ask the question, “Why is there little or no accountability and why have these medical facilities been granted tax-exempt status?”

During the pandemic crisis, our Governor instituted a state of emergency giving him extraordinary powers along with allowing our State Health and Welfare to impose onerous and non-science-based regulations on Idahoans such as the requirement of wearing masks and social distancing. It also allowed our major medical facilities to agree to follow CDC/NIH protocols, which caused major problems for relatives wanting to visit with loved ones whose lives were in danger. We think it is high time that there was a forensic investigation of Idaho’s H&W department along with the tax-exempt status of several of our medical facilities. There has never been such an audit by an outside source, and it is highly unlikely it will ever happen with the current administration. Maybe our new Attorney General will see the light and investigate this huge tax-sucking bureaucracy that offers little or no accountability.