“I cannot spare this man, he fights” – Abraham Lincoln on General Ulysses S. Grant
To the citizens of Idaho District 9, my name is Brian Parsons. I am a nationally and regionally published conservative columnist in Pocatello and Vice Chair of the Bannock County Republican Party. I am writing you today to tell you why you should continue to support your District 9 Senator, Brandon Shippy.
Medicine is what brought my family to Idaho. As my wife trained in Pediatrics at Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, she became aware of an opening for a pediatrician at the Pocatello Children’s Clinic. This 63-year-old clinic was held in such high regard by the doctors at Primary Children’s Hospital that they told her she needed to join this practice. Despite no shortage of opportunities in Salt Lake City, we heeded their advice. We have since made Idaho our home for the past twelve years, our boys were born and raised here, and we’ve found community.
In the Spring of 2025, the Idaho legislature passed House Bill 345, which transfers the management of Medicaid patients from local Idaho doctors to an out-of-state insurance corporation. It does so at a high cost to healthcare treatment dollars and to local staff. Despite my best efforts to speak out against this bill, I was unable to slow the process, and it passed very quickly.
House Bill 345 terminated the doctor-management portion, Healthy Connections, that Idaho has used for the past 33 years, without a replacement insurance-led program until at least 2029. This program was the cost-containment program that made Medicaid patients accountable to primary care by assigning them to a local doctor who took 24/7 calls, triaged them away from the Emergency Room, and handled all referrals and care coordination for higher-cost specialty services. Its termination could cost Idaho between $150 and $400 million a year. As of January 01, this program is gone, leaving primary care providers, such as Two Rivers Medical Clinic in Weiser, in an untenable position, threatening our viability as primary care in Idaho. Medicaid delivery now costs your doctor more money than it pays.
In our efforts to mitigate this issue, I spoke with dozens of legislators, set up a booth at the statewide GOP summer meeting in Pocatello, and put on luncheons and meet-and-greets with legislators to help them understand exactly what they had done. Very few of the legislators understood what they had done, but a single state legislator reached out to apologize, expressed their ignorance of the intricacies of healthcare delivery, and stepped forward to fix their mistake. That individual was your District 9 Senator, Brandon Shippy.
Despite not being a direct representative of the Pocatello Children’s Clinic, Senator Shippy has been involved at every step of this process to rectify the situation. We drafted legislation as a stopgap measure to make primary care whole until the insurance contract is awarded and to keep the state Medicaid budget in check. We obtained signatures from 35 hospitals, clinics, and associations in support of our amendment. We got sponsors in both the Idaho House and the Idaho Senate. We found funding in Idaho’s Millennium Fund to support the program. Despite all of this, gatekeepers in the Idaho Legislature have refused to give this amendment a hearing, instead directing patients to higher-cost hospital emergency rooms, where they can shift the cost from the State to the Federal government.
This process has been an eye-opener in who exactly the Idaho government works for. It doesn’t work for you, the people of Idaho. It works for government-carved-out hospitals and corporations. District 9 Senator Brandon Shippy works for you.
Despite our inability to be heard by the legislature, Senator Shippy has not stopped advocating and pursuing new avenues as they become available. We are eternally grateful for his representation, professional demeanor, advocacy, and willingness to pursue every avenue imaginable to rectify this situation and protect Idaho’s community doctors and patients. When you go to the primary ballot box in May, remember this and keep this man in office at any cost. He has demonstrated the highest level of courage, character, and persistence.
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