Executive Summary

Idaho, like many other states across the country, is now faced with a challenging dilemma regarding Medicaid. Obamacare calls for a vast expansion of Medicaid, but the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the individual states may choose whether to implement the expansion within their own borders. Despite the suggestions of some supporters claiming that this expansion could save money through the eventual elimination of county indigent services, the reality is that expanding Medicaid will ultimately result in the redistribution of more taxpayer dollars in pursuit of the utopian goal of "universal health care" and will destroy the dignity of tens of thousands of Idahoans who will be forced onto the public dole.

There are a number of free market alternatives to expanding Medicaid that avoid the inefficiencies of bureaucracy and centralization and that respect individuals and their health care needs. It is to these alternatives, and not to the enlargement of government programs, that Idaho must look if it is to avoid the myriad federal entanglements that expanding Medicaid will entail.

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