Legislative budget-writers next week will get a first look at a prescription to address Idaho’s doctors’ shortage.

The Jan. 15 hearing will bring the issue before the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee — the panel that is likely to debate how much the state can afford to spend to train medical school students, and where that money should go.

A state task force delivered its medical education plan to Gov. Brad Little and legislators last week. And in their final meeting on Dec. 19, task force members sharpened their recommendations to the Legislature.

Two key points from the 42-page report:

Holding the line. The report recommends full funding of Idaho’s two medical education programs — partnerships with the University of Washington and the University of Utah.

The state currently subsidizes medical school seats at both universities, so Idaho students need to pay only in-state tuition. Idaho purchases 40 medical school seats per year at Washington, at nearly $7.6 million this year, and 10 seats a year at Utah, costing close to $3.1 million

But holding the line is in itself a recommendation, as task force co-chair and Rep. Dustin Manwaring, R-Pocatello, pointed out during the group’s Dec. 19 meeting. A 2025 state law — which created the medical education task force — called for possibly reducing seats at Washington’s medical school.

Building new partnerships. The report also calls for buying additional medical school seats at the University of Utah and the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine, a private, for-profit medical school in Meridian.

Utah and ICOM are two of the state’s closest regional options for growing its medical education portfolio. The 2025 state law calls for adding 30 subsidized medical school seats over a three-year period — with partners other than the University of Washington. Idaho has never funded seats at ICOM, which operates in partnership with Idaho State University.

During their Dec. 19 meeting, task force members wrestled with their recommendations — and what to do about Washington’s WWAMI program, named for its partner states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.

During a two-week public comment period on the plan, several WWAMI supporters urged the state to build on this partnership, launched in 1972.

Manwaring urged task force members to make no recommendation on WWAMI expansion, since the 2025 law calls for building other medical education partnerships.

“The more we push this, I think we’re going to start going backwards with our legislative body,” he said.

The task force report makes no recommendations for a larger and more potentially costly move — acquiring ICOM and bringing it fully under Idaho State’s jurisdiction. The school is not currently for sale, and a possible purchase price remains unknown, but consultants hired by Idaho State have recommended a state purchase.

For now, any proposal to subsidize new medical school seats could run into daunting fiscal reality. The state faces a $40 million shortfall in the current budget year, ending June 30, and a whopping $555 million gap for 2026-27.

It is in that tough climate that JFAC would consider any medical education expansion.

But in its report, the task force calls Idaho’s physician shortage “persistent,” and repeats two sobering and often-cited statistics.

“Idaho ranks 50th nationally for physicians per capita, and 44th in primary care physicians per capita,” the report says.

Click here for our in-depth coverage of the medical education debate.