Appleton started his career with Micron in 1983, eventually becoming CEO of the company in 1994. Appleton is survived by his wife, Dalynn, and four children.

For more information on this story from Forbes, click here.

In Idaho a debate rages about whether the state should set up its own exchange or let the federal government take on the task.

Two health policy experts say it really doesn’t matter who does the job.

John Graham of the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank, and Christie Herrera of the American Legislative Exchange Council, told IdahoReporter.com Thursday that they believe there’s no difference between a state-based exchange and a federally run program.

The duo was in Boise Thursday to meet with lawmakers about exchanges. There trip was funded by the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

“The secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Washington, D.C., can dictate every regulation that your state health insurance exchange is going to be implementing,” Graham said. “So it’s an absolute myth that you can build some kind of firebreak or firewall or barrier. It’s an absolute myth.”

Graham believes that if the U.S. Supreme Court decides in June that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), the law from which exchanges are derived, is constitutional, then federal rules and regulations take pre-eminence over anything the state wants to put into place.

“There’s no way your local authorities … is going to have any influence over the rules,” Graham warned. “Obamacare will be supreme and all the money is going to come from Washington, D.C., and power follows money.”

Herrera echoed Graham’s notion, saying that she also feels there’s no difference between a state and federal exchange. “We know that HHS has to approve every detail of the exchange,” Herrera said. “There are several factors that have come out that show there’s no such as a state exchange, only a federal exchange that’s administered and paid for by the federal government.”

But, Herrera says there’s also a misconception that the federal government will automatically implement an exchange if the state doesn’t. She says that technical provisions in the PPACA don’t allow the federal government to spend money on building state exchanges.

Herrera also says that there may not be authorization for insurance subsidies to flow through federally built exchanges.

There is also skepticism about the deadlines created by HHS for exchange creation. The first benchmark, set for Jan. 1, 2013, says exchanges must be certified by that date, though there are few details as to what certification entails.

Others believe exchanges must be operational by Oct. 1, 2013. There is also talk, however, that states slow to implement exchanges might be OK creating them by Jan. 1, 2015.

“Over the past six months, HHS has made a number of statements that show their deadlines really aren’t deadlines at all,” Herrera warned. “These HHS deadlines are moving targets.”

Video for the series by Mitch Coffman, IdahoReporter.com. 

For more information on this story from the Spokesman-Review, click here.

A pair of health policy experts Thursday talked about state and federal health exchanges and they have a single message for Idaho lawmakers: Give the money back and wait.

John Graham, health care studies director for the Pacific Research Institute, a California-based think tank, and Christie Herrera, with the American Legislative Exchange Council, held meetings with lawmakers Thursday to urge them to hold off on any decisions about a state-based health exchange. Graham and Herrera were sponsored toBoise by the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

Graham told IdahoReporter.com he believes Gov. Butch Otter should return the $20.9 million in federal money he applied for to set up the exchange. Otter says he asked for the money only to keep lawmakers’ options open relating to creating an exchange, but Graham says there’s really one purpose for the funds.

“This grant has only one purpose, which is to submit to the Obamacare federal health law,” Graham said. “The immediate action is Gov. Otter needs to send back the $20 million grant he received from theUnited Statessecretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius.”

Lawmakers should hold off on exchange creation, Graham suggested, keeping the state’s standing in its court case against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). “It really weakens your case,” Graham told lawmakers about implementing exchanges, which are part of the PPACA.

Herrera agreed, telling lawmakers the court case is the state’s best chance to stop the PPACA from being implemented. “It’s going to harm the lawsuit,” she told lawmakers about exchange creation.

If the U.S. Supreme Court decides the PPACA is constitutional, Graham feels Idaho legislators should also wait until after the 2012 election, which could mean a change in the presidency. “We might get a president who will sign a simple repeal bill and we won’t have to worry about any of this stuff,” Graham said.

If an exchange, either state or federally based, is eventually implemented, Herrera says it will do little to improve health care and might make purchasing coverage more difficult. “All of the problems that are in the current health exchange market will end up in the exchange,” she warned.

While the initial subsidies for the program, more than $500 billion through 2020, will come from the federal government, Herrera says the state will bear the burden of paying for exchange operation and technical support. That, she believes, could lead to the state devoting loads of money to the exchange and less to Medicaid, public schools or other government program.

“Once the federal money runs out, you’ve created this bureaucracy, they’re not going to get rid of it because of politics, and so, something is going to have to give,” Herrera said. “It’s going to be tax increases or service cuts; you can’t have it all.”

Coming Friday: Graham and Herrera talk about how exchanges will affect the marketplace and why they won’t reduce health care costs. Video for the series by Mitch Coffman, IdahoReporter.com.

Note: IdahoReporter.com is published by the Idaho Freedom Foundation.

Vick introduced a bill in the House State Affairs Committee Thursday that would require 66 percent of legislators on the House and Senate floors to approve tax increases, a change from the simple majority now required for all bills, including tax hike measures.

The measure passed 15-3 along party lines, with all Republicans supporting it and Democrats opposed.

Vick told IdahoReporter.com he’s seen the idea in other states and thought it’d be a good fit for Idaho. “It just seemed like a good idea,” Vick said. “The primary motive is to control the growth of government.”

Some committee lawmakers expressed concern that the higher bar to approve tax hikes would mean the government couldn’t be as nimble and responsive if revenues slump. Vick isn’t buying that argument. “We still can (increase taxes), but we have to develop a broad consensus as to what taxes we’re going to raise,” Vick noted. “It just sets a higher standard.”

The north Idaho senator believes his bill could also prompt lawmakers to express more concern over reserve account levels when the state has extra revenue. With a higher bar for tax increases to get through the House and Senate, Vick says legislators would instead turn to reserves. “I think there’d be more concern about whether the rainy day funds are full,” Vick said.

In the past three years as revenues have slumped, lawmakers have already opted to spend down reserves instead of hiking taxes. Since 2009, the state has gone through more than $381 million in rainy day funds. Gov. Butch Otter has proposed putting $60 million into savings accounts next year, but some lawmakers believe the state should bolster program holes before filling reserves.

Vick’s bill will likely be heard in the next two weeks.

Of the 235,000 Idahoans on food stamps, 40 percent of them, or about 93,000, are non-disabled adults without children. A portion of them, about 22,000, are not required to do any work searches or job applications to take part in the program.

These 22,000 are without jobs and don’t qualify for unemployment benefits, which require recipients to be actively seeking work in order to receive money.

It hasn’t always been this way, though. Tom Shanahan, spokesman for DHW, said that before budget holdbacks occurred in late 2009, the state required this select group of people to be seeking work in order to receive food stamps. Budget cuts forced the department to cut administrative costs and the oversight requirements were effectively ended.

There is another segment of food stamp recipients that neither earns a paycheck nor qualifies for unemployment benefits, but is required to seek work in order to qualify for aid. As part of a block grant from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Family program administered by the state, about 31,000 adults with children fall into this classification and are required to look for work to receive food stamps.

Another 40,000 adults are either working or qualify for unemployment payments. About 48 percent of food stamp recipients are children.

Rep. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, told IdahoReporter.com Wednesday he doesn’t favor restoring funds to ensure the single, able-bodied adults have to look for work to get food stamps, but instead suggests DHW and the Department of Labor could collaborate to find ways to get recipients earning paychecks.

Hagedorn also suggests that food stamp recipients not working should be required to do some form of community service, including working in schools, food pantries or other charitable organizations. “If a community is supporting you, then it’s only right that the support be returned to the community,” Hagedorn said.

The biggest amount of money went to tobacco-related programs. Among others receiving funds were the American Lung Association, Allumbaugh House and the Boys & Girls Club.

For more information on this story from the Spokesman Review,  click here.

Mission accomplished.

In the last few days, the Boise School District has sent out school levy literature home with students in their report cards. The literature, yellow tri-fold pamphlets, discuss the district’s “need” for levy passage and talks about how Boise’s schools would be harmed if voters don’t approve the measure.

Also included with the pamphlet is an absentee ballot request form.

Jones told IdahoReporter.com he believes it’s the school district’s job to inform parents of the ramifications of the levy’s possible failure. “Everything in that document is accurate,” Jones said. “We always publish information about the district before levies.”

Jones says this likely isn’t the first time the fact sheets have been sent home with report cards.  However, it is the first instance he remembers absentee ballot request forms being sent home.

Though some parents have called IdahoReporter.com about the fairness of the literature, Jones says the information sheets are unbiased. “I wouldn’t agree they are pro-levy,” he said.

Jones says he wouldn’t allow a group of parents opposing the levy to distribute their own facts sheets through student report cards because he believes that would open the floodgates for political material being sent home.

Austin Hill, a radio show host for 580 KIDO AM in Boise, has been a vocal critic of the levy and told the Boise Weekly that district officials aren’t calling the measure a tax hike, which he believes it is.

In the interview with the paper, Hill accused district officials of spreading “propaganda” about the levy and using its resources to promote the levy. “What I find unfair in the midst of this is that school district employees and friends of the district can get into venues and spread their message with no outside voices at all,” said Hill. “They have an impact that the average person cannot.”

The district isn’t the only government entity supporting the levy. On Tuesday, the Boise City Council voted 6-0 to approve a nonbinding resolution supporting passage of the levy.

Former state Rep. Branden Durst, D-Boise, who has kids in the Boise School District and received the pamphlet and ballot request form with his kids’ report cards, said the practice is perfectly acceptable. “They didn’t necessarily instruct anyone to vote for it,” Durst told IdahoReporter.com, adding that the district sent ballot request to all parents, not solely those who’ve expressed support for the levy.

Asked if he thinks the pamphlet offers a fair assessment of the levy’s pros and cons, Durst said the document might slightly favor levy passage. “I think it was written from the school district’s perspective,” Durst explained. “It’s impossible to eliminate all the impartiality of an issue.”

See pictures of the pamphlet below:

The bill—which passed through the House fairly easily on a 54-16 vote—was sent to amending order in the Senate. Several lawmakers, including Sen. Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, and Brent Hill, R-Rexburg, took issue with some of the measures contained within the bill.

Hill even said that he had made up his mind to vote for the bill, but after hearing testimony and other issues raised by legislators, he would vote to send it to the amending order. He said he is not comfortable with the emergency clause in the bill that would put the law into the books within three days of the governor signing it.

Much of the controversy surrounding this bill has been regarding the First Amendment and the right to free speech. Although that was touched on during the committee hearing, Davis brought up the Fourth Amendment regarding illegal search and seizure, referring to the section of the bill that would allow people’s possessions, if left unattended after the law was in affect, to be regarded as litter and thrown away.

Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Coeur d’Alene, the bill’s Senate sponsor, compared the Occupy encampment to someone camping in state parks or on the front lawn of someone else with no thought of when the camping might end. “They don’t have the right, nobody has the right to seize our common property for their own use, particularly for an unknown period of time, particularly month after month,” he said.

For Monica Hopkins, head of the ACLU of Idaho, the issue before the Senate was free speech. “What they are doing is protected symbolic speech,” she said of the Occupy Boise encampment.

Sending the bill to amending order allows amendments to be offered by any senator. .

The Mastery Advancement Pilot Project, or MAPP, was created in 2010 to reward students who graduate from high school early with scholarships. According to records obtained by IdahoReporter.com, the state has given out $40,000 in scholarship money to 28 students, all from the Boise School District.

The scholarship money can only be used at Idaho public colleges or universities and not at private institutions such as Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg or Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa.

The scholarships totaled $1,471 per student, paid out to in two equal sums. There is no indication at what colleges or universities the money is being used.

MAPP runs until 2016, when it will be assessed for its effectiveness. The concept behind the program is that it’s cheaper for the state to pay out early graduation scholarships than to pay to educate the students during their final high school years. The savings from students not being in school are split among the district, the state and the student in the form of the scholarships.