Next week, we release our Topical Agenda ahead of the 2026 Idaho Health Policy Commons event December 8th conference at the Boise Centre. If you already know you want to join a few hundred of your closest friends in Idaho health care and health policy a few weeks before the 2027 session kicks off, Early Bird registration ends this week. We’d love to have you with us!
Legislators on the Medicaid Review Panel and staff from the Dept. of Health and Welfare have held an unprecedented number of meetings to inform the upcoming managed care RFP. The full scope of engagement was laid out by Medicaid Director Sasha O’Connell at a recent Panel meeting.
The panel has also relied on help from consultant Jennifer Strohecker, who led Medicaid in Utah for four years. She’s been meeting with legislators to gather questions, find answers, and tee up recommendations for consideration. LSO Legal Counsel Elizabeth Bowen is also in the mix, providing members with guidance on their role, and what the upcoming “blackout period” means for them.
A recent DOI presentation broke down Idaho’s insurance coverage by line of business, ranging from self-funded coverage to Medicare Advantage. For the most part, it reflected the kinds of things you’d expect in a growing, healthy economy.
But, two things stood out to me that should warrant attention by Idaho policy makers. The most important of which is that while the labor market is growing with the population, there are fewer Idahoans covered by small to medium sized businesses today than in 2021. If an economy loses its small to medium sized businesses (think family-owned farms or locally-owned hardware stores), it becomes less resilient to shocks — like an AI bubble.
Rare is the day when US Senate races in Texas, Alaska, and Kansas appear all likely to vote Democratic. But, that day may be next month as Dems may be set to run the table on toss up races, getting to 53 votes in the US Senate. Add Iowa and it gets to 54.
Senate Democrats have talking points around health care: “Affordable. Accessible. Easier to Navigate.” But that’s not a policy agenda. More important for Idaho may be Sen. Mike Crapo losing his chairmanship of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, which oversees much of health policy.
National political ad spending is projected to be $11.6b this year, up from 2024’s record of $11.2b. Both left and right have hit on economic insecurity, with the ‘cost of living’ as the top issue for Dems, second behind taxes for Republicans.
Both parties’ candidates are often bad mouthing their own party, but Democrats are particularly into it. It may be why, in part, the Democratic Party has a lower net-approval rating than the historically low ratings of Pres. Trump.
How long have we been saying patients should be more involved in their health care? Well, what happens if they do? It turns out that in some cases, the patient’s belief in the efficacy of their treatment matters. It’s not just a placebo effect. It’s been discussed across a range of diagnoses and disease states, like here and here.
Reflecting this, a new set of draft guidelines from the American Society of Addiction Medicine suggest that the community standard of care be established, in part, based on “patient needs and preferences.” Maybe broken arms don’t need a lot of belief to heal, but caregivers will tell us the ‘will to live’ is real. It would be a big deal if such standards also fit for auto-immune treatments or cancer protocols.
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