Idaho faces tough budget choices in the coming months. Cutting mental health peer support should not be part of the answer. As directed by the State, Magellan, the contractor managing Medicaid behavioral-health services, plans to cut several behavioral health services, including peer support as of December 1. This announcement has had the mental health services world reeling for the outsized impact it will have on some of Idaho’s most vulnerable.

The decision saves a few dollars in the short term, but at a devastating cost. Not only do hundreds of active peer support specialists face losing their jobs just before the holidays, but the thousands of people they serve, who are seeking recovery and need support navigating daily life, managing symptoms, and building recovery skills, will be left without support when they need it most.

Idaho has made meaningful strides in the behavioral health space recently, including expanding the 988-crisis line to include 24/7 mobile behavioral-health response teams statewide–a major step toward accessible, community-based crisis care. Cuts to peer support services represent a larger step backwards.

It’s one that Idaho cannot afford. Mental Health America ranks Idaho 48th out of 50 states. Too many Idahoans still struggle to find timely, affordable care. Cutting peer-support only widens that gap. Any progress we’ve made is at risk if we curtail evidence-based and cost-efficient systems that bolster our behavioral health workforce.

Peer Support Specialists provide the human connection in a system that can otherwise feel impersonal and intimidating. They have walked their own path of recovery and now reinforce that work by helping their clients stay engaged in treatment and connected to their communities. Research consistently shows peer support reduces hospitalizations, improves recovery outcomes, and lowers costs. A full-time peer support specialist typically carries a caseload of 12-15 individuals who rely upon them. This means, as of December, Idaho faces the quadruple whammy of thousands of Idahoans suddenly losing essential support, peers losing gainful employment that supports their own recovery, another blow to our already beleaguered mental health workforce, and impacts to the work of clinicians.

Especially in rural areas, peers fill the gap where licensed clinicians are scarce. Our 988 mobile crisis teams depend on this workforce; peer specialists turn moments of fear into connection and hope. Dropping this key component jeopardizes that model. Once programs close or staff are reduced, rebuilding will take years.

Budget pressures are real, but cuts that save a small amount now will cost us later in emergency care, hospitalization, incarceration, family disruption, and worse for those who live with serious mental illness. Instead, Idaho should focus on maintaining and even strengthening the peer workforce as a cost-effective method for supporting recovery.

Governor Brad Little and the Legislature have proven strong stewards of Idaho’s finances. The state’s rainy-day fund, now holding record reserves, is precisely the tool for stabilizing essential services while policymakers plan for sustainability. Protecting mental-health access isn’t excess spending; it’s safeguarding lives and the workforce that supports them.

Idaho is modernizing our crisis response, investing in 988, and talking openly about mental health in ways unthinkable a decade ago. Undercutting that progress will have lasting impact. Peer support is a bridge between clinical care and real life. It keeps people connected to treatment, hope, and community. If we truly value recovery, dignity, and access to care for all Idahoans, we must protect that bridge. Use the rainy-day fund. Exempt behavioral health services from cuts. Don’t balance the budget on the backs of Idaho’s most vulnerable.

Beth Markley is the executive director of NAMI Idaho, the state organization of the National Alliance for Mental Illness, which advocates and offers support and education in support of those who have a mental illness and the families and friends who care for them.