BOISE, ID – The Idaho Legislature is considering hiring a consultant to guide the state’s shift to private companies managing Medicaid benefits.

Idaho Medicaid to be privately managed in 2029, health officials expect

Idaho’s move to privatized Medicaid management — a model called managed care that is common throughout the U.S. — comes at the direction of a sweeping state cost cutting bill passed last year. The transition will likely take years, with state health officials hoping to launch the comprehensive Medicaid managed care contract in 2029.

Before then, state officials are planning years of prep work to help design the contract, which will likely be the state’s biggest contract.

The Idaho Legislature’s Medicaid Review Panel on Tuesday approved introducing a resolution that would let the committee hire a consultant or analyst.

The Legislature’s consultant — which state lawmakers estimated would cost around $200,000 — would be in addition to any consultants hired by the Department of Health and Welfare. A trailer bill to last year’s Medicaid cost cutting bill appropriated the agency $1.5 million annually for a consultant, Idaho Medicaid Deputy Director Sasha O’Connell told the committee.

The Medicaid managed care contract could cost around $5 billion, so it’d be worth the Legislature hiring its own consultant, said Rep. John Vander Woude, a Nampa Republican lawmaker who chairs the House Health and Welfare Committee.

“I don’t think anybody in the Legislature has the bandwidth, or the knowledge, to be able to go and take a close look at this,” said Vander Woude, who co-chairs the Medicaid Review Panel. “Having seen past experiences of contracts … I just think it’s better to have a second set of eyes on it.”

Two lawmakers on the panel — Sen. Melissa Wintrow, a Boise Democrat, and Sen. Mark Harris, a Republican from Soda Springs — voted against introducing the resolution.

“Maybe somebody can talk me off of this cliff. But this is like buying two tractors to pull the same plow,” Harris said. “… We’re in a crunch right now, a financial crunch on the state level, and we’re talking about hiring another person, and I’ve got some reservations.”

The resolution would authorize the Medicaid Review Panel to hire a consultant with approval from the Republican legislative leaders: the Senate president pro tempore and the House speaker.

The resolution was not immediately available on the Legislature’s website.

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