Month: March 2026

David Pace

BOISE, Idaho (KIFI) – Gov. Brad Little made the difficult decision to sign legislation impacting disabled Idahoans on Thursday – cutting the Medicaid budget by $21.8 million dollars.

The cuts impact housing programs and services for people with disabilities – reducing the rates paid to residential habilitation providers by 10 percent.

“It’s been a tough year, and it’s not easy for anybody in the Statehouse to make these cuts or to make these decisions,” said State Sen. Julie VanOrden, R-District 30, who serves as Health and Welfare Committee Chairwoman.

The program serves disabled individuals who require various levels of care, including people with Down Syndrome or severe mental illnesses whose families can’t care for them.

Many of these individuals require intensive, 24-hour care, but the program also benefits individuals who simply require additional help to be independent.

“The money flows from the state to the providers to either the caregivers directly or to the clients, and then they pay their caregivers. I would hope somewhere along that line that if a reduction was going to be made, that it would not be to the caregivers or the clients,” VanOrden said. “I would hope it would be made somewhere else, so they would not be affected by these reductions.

Idaho spends more than $176 million each year on residential habilitation.

The 10 percent cut includes last year’s four percent holdback on Medicaid.

But even with the reduction, overall funding is 33 percent higher than it was four years ago, VanOrden said.

In 2022, the Legislature allocated an additional $70 million to the program, plus $22 million to provide additional services.

In passing House Bill 863, the Idaho House and Senate voted to advance the Governor’s original budget recommendations.

“I would hope that people understand that if we receive more income, I would like to be able to take those funds and use them to restore some of these reductions that are being made,” she said.

VanOrden has a record of restoring programs if funding is available.

This year, she succeeded in securing opioid settlement funds to bring back funding for the ACT mental health program that had been cut earlier in the session.

Local News 8 will follow up with next week with providers who offer housing to individuals with disabilities to learn more about how the cuts will impact those they serve.

In this file image, Gov. Brad Little signs a bill into law.

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Par Kermani

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) — The Natural Medicine Alliance of Idaho is entering what organizers describe as a “final big push” to place medical cannabis on the November 2026 ballot, following years of gridlock in the legislature.

The proposed Idaho Medical Cannabis Act would legalize the use of marijuana for patients with pre-approved medical conditions. Amanda Watson, Communications Lead for the Alliance, says the initiative is popular despite legislative opposition.

“We see lots of different people reaching out with various conditions. And there are lots of really incredible stories. And I think it’s a privilege not to have one of those stories. I hope that we can see some empathy from those, those folks who may or may not necessarily understand it as much, to be open-minded about what this could really do for patients in Idaho.” Watson said.

The Alliance has modeled its proposal after Utah’s medical cannabis law, though Watson notes they have made it more conservative. These measures include a limited number of production licenses to prevent market saturation and a total ban on public advertisements.

“We knew that we needed to have a very conservative approach that allowed for oversight, that allowed for restrictions that did not make this a free-for-all,” Watson said.

The push comes as the Idaho Legislature introduced new measures Friday to further restrict the citizen initiative process. Additionally, voters will decide on HJR 4 in 2026, a constitutional amendment that would give the legislature exclusive authority over the legalization of controlled substances.

Despite the legislative resistance, Watson points to internal polling showing that 83% of Idaho voters support a medical cannabis program. She says the campaign has seen particularly strong momentum in eastern Idaho and is now focused on meeting the requirements for the initiative to be placed on the ballot.

“This is our opportunity in a democracy to voice our opinion,” Watson said. “While disappointing that we were not able to get any traction with our legislature, we have it with the voting public, and we believe this will pass.”

The initiative was inspired in part by the experience of the late Dr. Dori Tunney, a pediatrician and cancer patient who advocated for legal access to medical cannabis for pain management before she died in 2024.

“It was a very difficult thing to manage,” said Watson. “And that kind of set off a light bulb where she felt this should be accessible.”

The Alliance has until the end of April to collect signatures from 6% of registered voters in each of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts. Organizers say they are maintaining regional offices and a presence at major community events across the state to meet the deadline.

“We are pushing and pushing and pushing until that final bell rings,” Watson said. “We really want people to be able to vote on this in November.”

For more information on how you can support the measure, click HERE.

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