A blueprint addressing Idaho’s physician shortage is one step closer to a finished product.

A state working group unanimously approved the medical education plan Friday afternoon.

The plan will now go to Gov. Brad Little and the Legislature. And it sets the table for an ongoing legislative debate over medical education — and how the state should spend millions of dollars to support Idaho students.

The 2025 Legislature called for subsidizing 30 additional medical school seats over the next three years, enabling Idaho students to pay in-state tuition to attend out-of-state medical schools. The Legislature said the state might, or might not, cut back subsidized medical school seats with the University of Washington’s WWAMI program.

Idaho now spends $10.7 million subsidizing 50 medical school seats per year, 40 at WWAMI and 10 at the University of Utah.

A draft of the plan, released Dec. 1, called for adding seats with Utah and WWAMI — a partnership named for its member states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho — “to the extent permitted by law.” It also says the state could, for the first time, subsidize seats at the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine, a private, for-profit medical school in Meridian.

The plan also addresses other options — a University of Idaho-Utah partnership on an in-state medical campus, and a state purchase of ICOM.

Click here for an analysis of public comments on the draft plan.