Idaho will not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act at this time. In his state of the state address Governor C. L. “Butch” Otter said that he will not seek an expansion this year.

With the Supreme Court ruling that states have the option to opt-out of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion and several Republican governor already saying they will opt-out, now is a good time to push for fully federalizing the program. Common sense economics argues for federal funding, because it can deal with the need for more funding during economic down turns.

Besides essentially upholding the entire Affordable Care Act, the most important news coming out of the Supreme Court decision is that it limited how the federal government can implement the Medicaid expansion. The law would provide money for states to expand Medicaid for everyone up to 138 percent of the Federal poverty level (FPL). This could have huge policy implications given that the Medicaid expansion is supposed to be responsible for roughly half of the law’s coverage expansion.

The Court concluded that the federal government can’t force states to take part in the Medicaid expansion by threatening to end their current Medicaid funding if they don’t.