Tagged: StateImpact Idaho

When the 2013 legislative session wraps up, a big policy question will remain: Will the state make Medicaid available to a greater number of Idaho’s poor? The federal health care law encourages that move. It’s a debate that involves potential costs and savings, along with patient well-being. And it turns quickly to chronic conditions, like mental illness.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis will release personal income data for 2012. In anticipation of that release, StateImpact Idaho pulled together personal income data going back to 1990 and compared it with the U.S. average. The data show a widening gap between Idaho and the country as a whole.

A sales tax exemption for Girl Scout cookies sold in Idaho will advance to the upper chamber after lawmakers in the House approved the measure 59-11.

Idaho and Hawaii are the only two states that tax the sale of Girl Scout cookies. In Idaho, 22 cents from every box sold goes to the state. That amounts to about $140,000 in revenue each year.

After seven hours of debate, Idaho House lawmakers voted 41-29 to pass a bill that would give Idaho control over building and maintaining an online insurance marketplace.

A Republican lawmaker says he will bring forward a bill to expand Idaho's Medicaid program this week. That's after Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter said lawmakers should wait on the issue.

Rep. Tom Loertscher (R-Bone) plans to introduce two bills on Thursday.

One would dissolve Idaho's Catastrophic Health Care Program. That's the program that helps medically indigent Idahoans who don't qualify for state or federal health care aid.

Public comment on the Idaho Legislature’s new health insurance exchange bill starts bright and early Thursday morning. With signup starting at 6:30 a.m., interested citizens will have the chance give the House Health and Welfare Committee their opinion on the revamped bill that would create a state-based health insurance exchange.

A left-leaning tax policy group recently put out a short little report about the state corporate income taxes paid by IDACorp. That’s the holding company of Idaho’s largest electric utility, Idaho Power. 

The report claims IDACorp paid no state income taxes nationwide from 2007 through 2011.

Over the last couple of years we’ve heard a lot about the haves and have-nots. The 1 percent and the 99 percent — that is, the top earners in the United States (the so-called 1 percent) and the rest of us (the 99 percent).

Famous for its potatoes, trout fishing, and blue AstroTurf, Idaho might not have much in common with Hawaii. But here’s one thing: Idaho and Hawaii are the only two states in the country to tax Girl Scout Cookies. Now, some local Scouts are beefing up their sales pitches and learning to lobby.

Homeowners, credit intact, still making their monthly mortgage payments.  They’re not who we think of first when we think of the damage brought on by the housing crisis. But in a sprawling, master-planned southwest Boise subdivision called Charter Pointe, they’re a group that has struggled.