SUNDAY DECEMBER 20 2015 $2 VOLUME 151, No. 148WWW.IDAHOSTATESMAN.COM/

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NEWS ALL DAY.YOUR WAY!

Jeremy McNichols, right, is among the

many Boise State players with connec-

tions to Southern California — perfect

for the team’s trip to the Poinsettia

Bowl in San Diego. SPORTS, 1B

Bowl season is underway, including

Utah’s win over BYU. 2-3B

BRONCO BLITZ

BSU’s strongSoCal links

Mayor Dave Bieter, under

fire from activists over the

disbanding of a tent city by

the Connector and Inter-

faith Sanctuary, responds in

a guest opinion that the

homeless were living in

inhumane and dangerous

conditions there that put

themselves and others at

risk, necessitating action by

the city. OPINION, 4C

COMMENTARY

COOPER COURTWAS UNSAFE PLACE

One extended family, in-

cluding Boise sisters, has

four children on the autism

spectrum. Read about their

determination to get good

outcomes. EXPLORE, 1D

AUTISM

FAMILIES FIGHTINGFOR THEIR KIDS

President Barack Obama

and first lady Michelle met

with relatives of the 14 peo-

ple killed in San Bernardi-

no. “They’re on our side,” a

survivor said. NEWS, 15A

GUN VIOLENCE

OBAMA COMFORTSVICTIMS’ FAMILIES

Amir Piranfar, a third-year doctoral pharmacy student at the Meridian campus of Idaho State University, was

about to fall into Idaho’s cavernous health insurance coverage gap next semester, a result of his changing work

schedule, the Republican-led state government’s refusal to expand Medicaid and the State Board of Education’s

requirement that full-time students have insurance that complies with the Affordable Care Act. Fortunately, one

part of that equation has changed: The board has temporarily waived the insurance rule after discovering how

many hundreds of Idaho students were in the same boat as Piranfar. Health care reporter Audrey Dutton has the

latest. DEPTH, 1C

DEPTH: HEALTH CARE

The Medicaid gapand Idaho students

KATHERINE JONES kjones@idahostatesman.com

After four years of watching from the

sidelines, Kellen Moore thrilled Boise

State fans Saturday night, replacing

Matt Cassel as the Cowboys’ QB. He

didn’t thrill Dallas fans, though,

throwing three interceptions in a loss

to the Jets. SPORTS, 1B

NFL

Kellen finallygets his shot

Joe Huff is not exactly an outsider, having devoted his

life to the force, but he also didn’t rise up the ranks the

way police chiefs often do. NEWS, 4A

LAW ENFORCEMENT

NEW DIRECTION FOR NAMPA POLICE

TOP STORIESSTAYCONNECTED

IDAHO HISTORY

Looking back to when Idahoanstraveled into 20th century 8A

RELIGION

The pivotal role the birth of a babycan play in our world 5D

Catching Up 2A

Local news 4-8ANation 11-16A

Weather 17A

Sports 1B

Depth 1C

Opinion 4C

Explore 1D

Books 4D

Obituaries 14D

OPINION

INL’s sickenednuclear workersdeserve fair dealfrom feds 1C

EXPLORE

It’s a Christmasmystery during ourseason of wonderTIM WOODWARD, 1D

Clouds, some rain

39°/28° See 17A

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Her Democratic rivals fired at Hillary Clinton over gun

control, Wall Street and foreign wars, but all the front-

runner did was focus on Republicans. NEWS, 14A

PRESIDENTIAL RACE

CLINTON DEFLECTS HEAT AT DEBATE

SUNDAY DECEMBER 20 2015 1CFACEBOOK.COM/IDAHOSTATESMAN

TWITTER.COM/IDAHOSTATESMANIDAHOSTATESMAN.COM

Depth MAYOR DAVE BIETER:

THE CONDITIONS AT

COOPER COURT WERE

UNSAFE, INHUMANE 4C

GUEST OPINION

Amir Piranfar is amongthe next generation ofhealth care providers— a third-year docto-

ral pharmacy student at theMeridian campus of IdahoState University.But as he planned for his

spring semester, the future ofhis career hinged on taking outstudent loans to pay for healthinsurance that is required toattend a public university:about $155 per month for apolicy he figures he will neveruse, because it has a nearly$7,000 deductible.It’s a stark change from this

year, when Piranfar paid about$20 per month for coveragewith no deductible and tinycopayments.The only difference? His

schedule.

Piranfar is heading into thedemanding final stage of hiseducation. He won’t have timeto work. This year, he had anincome that was just barelyabove poverty level, hitting athreshold for federal assistancethat made his insurance socheap.But he will earn too little

money to qualify next year.And he doesn’t qualify forIdaho’s bare-bones Medicaidprogram, which has not beenexpanded to include low-in-come adults. Piranfar is almost

27, so he cannot take advan-tage of the Affordable Care Actprovision that says childrencan ride along on their parents’insurance until age 26.Piranfar and an estimated

hundreds more Idaho collegeand graduate students fall intoa coverage gap. They havebeen required to pay thousandsof dollars for insurance or riskbeing dropped from full-timeattendance.At the same time, the state

no longer requires four-yearpublic colleges and universities

to offer students the option ofbuying a school health plan.“I wish they had it now,”

Piranfar said. “I mean, yeah, it(was) pretty expensive but ...their deductibles weren’t$7,000.”Now that they understand

KYLE GREEN kgreen@idahostatesman.com

Students study and dine at the Boise State University Student Union in late March — around the time their university decided to stopoffering a student health insurance plan, after the State Board of Education no longer required schools to provide an insurance option.

HEALTH CARE

Idaho college studentscaught in Medicaid gap

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hundreds going to school full time have been required to payfull price for insurance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The State Board of Education has temporarily waived insurancerequirement while it hammers out new policy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Rules for Idaho students do not parallel U.S. law, which includesa hardship exemption. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

BY AUDREY DUTTON

adutton@idahostatesman.com

SEE HEALTH CARE, 2C

‘‘JOBS DON’T REQUIREYOU TO HAVEINSURANCE. IT’S JUSTLIKE YOU’RE BEINGPENALIZED TO GO TOCOLLEGE.

Andrea Woodyard, Boise Statestudent

The Idaho Statesman’sRocky Barker and jour-nalists from otherMcClatchy newspapers

recently served up an amazingand disturbing report about the107,000 Americans whoworked in the nation’s nuclearindustry and who contractedcancer and other diseases thatcontributed to an estimated15,800 deaths linked to radi-ation exposure.These workers were exposed

to radiation during our efforts todevelop nuclear power and winthe Cold War. We put them inhazardous situations and weowe them more than our grat-itude. We are indebted to themfor their sacrifice and for theimpact their suffering had ontheir families.We owe them compensation

for tolerating serious, debilitat-ing illnesses that in more than33,000 incidents resulted incompensation following theirdeaths. In Idaho, some 400workers perished as a result ofexposure received while work-ing at the Idaho National Lab-oratory, according to the federalgovernment.Though there now is a system

for seeking compensation sincethe passage of the Energy Em-ployees Occupational IllnessCompensation Program Act in2001 — there has been about$12 billion in payouts to 53,000workers — the path for victimsand their families to get whatthey deserve has been riddledwith obstacles and frustratinginconsistencies.This has been especially true

for workers at INL dating to the1960s-70s. Whereas the em-ployees of some nuclear facil-ities can receive compensationsimply by demonstrating theyare afflicted with certain recog-nized occupational illnesses,those in Idaho have the addedburden of proving that theirwork at Department of Energyfacilities was responsible.It’s time for our federal gov-

ernment and those who managethe compensation program tolevel the playing field. At 18nuclear sites, there is a “specialexposure cohort” designation.Retirees of these facilities areautomatically granted typical$150,000 payouts and medicalcare if they manifest one of 22recognized diseases and workedat the facility during certaintime periods.Not so in Idaho. We believe

INL workers who manifestedany of the recognized occupa-tional diseases and who workedthere before 1974 should getthat same special cohort status— without having to prove any-thing else. McClatchy’sfour-part “Irradiated” seriespublished this week cites severalpossible causes of exposure atINL between 1963 and 1974.Treating Idaho workers differ-ently is reminiscent of the wayIdaho downwinders have beenignored despite mounting evi-dence of cancers related tonuclear tests in the 1950s and’60s.The fact that Kenneth Bailey

died of pancreatic cancer in 2011— combined with his 33 years asan instrument technician at INL— should be all the evidencefederal officials need to compen-sate his Idaho Falls widow. Butthat has not happened.It’s time to take care of all the

families who took care of us.

Statesman editorials are theunsigned opinion expressing theconsensus of the Statesman’seditorial board. To comment orsuggest a topic, emaileditorial@idahostatesman.com.

STATESMAN EDITORIALINL

Sickenednuclearworkersdeservefair deal

IGUALA, MEXICO

The killer says he “disap-peared” a man for the firsttime at age 20. Nine yearslater, he says, he has eliminat-ed about 30 people — maybethree in error.He sometimes feels sorry

about the work he does but hasno regrets, he says, because heis providing a kind of publicservice, defending his commu-nity from outsiders. Thingswould be much worse if rivalstook over.“A lot of times your neigh-

borhood, your town, your cityis being invaded by people who

you think are going to hurtyour family, your society,” hesays. “Well, then you have toact, because the governmentisn’t going to come help you.”He operates along the Costa

Grande of Guerrero, the south-western state that is home toglitzy Acapulco as well as torich farmland used to cultivateheroin poppies and marijuana.Large swaths of the state are

controlled or contested byviolent drug cartels that trafficin opium paste for the U.S.market, and more than 1,000people have been reportedmissing in Guerrero since 2007— far fewer than the actualnumber believed to have dis-appeared in the state.The plight of the missing and

their families burst into publicawareness last year when 43rural college students weredetained by police and dis-appeared from the Guerrerocity of Iguala, setting off na-tional protests. Then, suddenly,hundreds more families fromthe area came forward to re-port their kidnap victims,known now as “the other dis-appeared.” They told stories ofchildren and spouses abductedfrom home at gunpoint, or who

DRUG GANGS IN MEXICO

A killer’s story: Some 30 livesextinguished, but no regrets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Best for kidnapping is a home,early in the morning, “wheneveryone is asleep”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The “disappeared” won’t becoming back. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

BY E. EDUARDO CASTILLO

The Associated Press

DARIO LOPEZ-MILLS The Associated Press

There are many reasons people are killed, the man says. It may befor belonging to a rival gang, or for giving information to one.

‘‘THE (DISAPPEARED)PROBLEM IS MUCHBIGGER THAN PEOPLETHINK.

The killer

SEE KILLER, 3C

2C SUNDAY DECEMBER 20 2015Depth IDAHOSTATESMAN.COM

0002145711-01

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WISHING YOU

GOODHEALTHTHIS SEASON

these students’ plight,state education leaderssay they will try to help.The State Board of Educa-tion has just voted towaive the insurance re-quirement while it figuresout a permanent solution.

THE GENESIS OF A

PUBLIC POLICY GAP

About 15 years ago, thestate board imposed anew rule: Full-time stu-dents at four-year Idahopublic institutions of high-er education must beinsured.“When this policy was

first implemented, wewere experiencing a num-ber of students who werehaving some type of ma-jor medical event, andthey weren’t insured, sothey went to the localhospital,” said Matt Free-man, the board’s exec-utive director.Those students’ bills

often went to the countiesand the state under Ida-ho’s taxpayer-supportedsystem for indigent med-ical care.“That was the genesis”

of the policy requiringinsurance, he said. “Thatbasically remains themain focus — a funda-mental belief that stu-dents should be insured.”A board spokesman

said students also may bemore likely to get preven-tive care, and keep thecampus healthier, if theyhave insurance.Recognizing that stu-

dents could not alwayssimply sign up for insur-ance in the pre-AffordableCare Act era, the boardordered the schools tooffer student plans.Within the past year,

the board revised that

policy to say that studentsmust have insurance thatcomplies with the Affor-dable Care Act, not cheapstopgap plans. It also saidschools no longer mustoffer a plan option.One of the schools to

discontinue its plan wasBoise State. About 2,500students at BSU had beenon the school’s plan at thetime, The Arbiter, BoiseState’s student publi-cation, reported in March.A compliance official at

Boise State told theStatesman that the schoolhas yet to kick a studentoff the enrollment rollsdue to lack of health in-surance.The university now is

considering whether ornot to seek bids for a newinsurance plan for stu-dents.“We are all in quite a

quandary right now,” saidStacy Pearson, vice presi-dent for finance and ad-ministration at Boise StateUniversity. “We justdidn’t realize that healthinsurance was going tobecome such a large chal-lenge.”

TAKING URGENT

ACTION

Several students toldthe Statesman that theirschool plans were better,or cheaper, than theiroptions now. A graduatestudent at Idaho StateUniversity in Pocatellowhose SHIP premiums —student health insuranceplan — were covered inher teaching-assistantcompensation packagetold the Statesman shenow must buy insurance,reducing her overall in-come.“Students and their

families are also facingsteep increases in pricesfor policies offered on thestate exchange, with aver-age prices for a minimalcoverage ‘bronze’ planexceeding $200 permonth,” according to astaff report prepared forthe education board’sDec. 9-10 meeting inTwin Falls.One of those students is

Andrea Woodyard, aBoise State junior in her40s who is studying socialwork.Woodyard used to have

SHIP for about $200 amonth. Now she has “nota very good” Blue Cross

of Idaho plan from Ida-ho’s insurance exchangethat costs more than $350a month.Woodyard’s father is

helping pay the bill. Shehas not used her insur-ance, she said, becausethe deductibles are toohigh.Health plan costs are

growing “almost as muchas the tuition is,” she said.“Most people are gettingstudent loans to pay forhealth insurance.”Freeman told the

Statesman that he had notheard of students takingout loans to pay for healthinsurance, though it is an

“allowable expense” forstudent loan dollars.The board staff also

noted that its policy straysfrom the Affordable CareAct. As far as the federalgovernment is concerned,Piranfar and Idahoanslike him are exempt fromthe act’s mandate that allAmericans either havehealth insurance or pay afine, because holdingthem to it would cause toogreat a hardship. Thefederal government hascarved out more than adozen exemptions, fromlow income to life trou-bles such as eviction,homelessness or domesticviolence. The educationboard’s policy does notrecognize those.“Some of these students

have established arrange-ments through clinics andother charitable organiza-tions to provide for med-ical care while attendingcollege on extremely tightbudgets,” the board’sDecember meeting mate-rials said.Woodyard goes to Terry

Reilly Health Services — anetwork of federally sup-ported community clinicsin Ada, Canyon and Owy-hee counties — for freecare.“Administrators at the

four-year institutions andboard staff members havebeen besieged by studentsand families who, underthe current wording of theboard’s policy, may not beable to continue with theirplanned studies,” theboard’s agenda said.“Hundreds of studentsare affected by the scena-rios described above.”The board decided at

this month’s meeting torethink its policy. It votedunanimously to waive therequirement until theboard passes a new policy,or Sept. 1, 2016, which-ever comes first.

A PERMANENT

SOLUTION?

When he learned of theboard’s decision, Piranfarsighed with relief. He saidhe had been working thephones trying to explorehis options for the pastcouple of months.Instead of a catastroph-

ic plan from the ex-change, Piranfar nowplans to get a Blue Crossof Idaho temporary pol-icy. It costs about $70 amonth, but it doesn’t offerthe same benefits hecould get on a regularACA-compliant plan. Still,he expects to save a lot ofmoney.As a health care worker,

Piranfar believes the tem-porary waiver is not theright answer. He thinksthe solution rests in thehands of state lawmakers.“I think they should

expand Medicaid here,”he said. “I see people whoare uninsured all the time,who get into financialtrouble because of it.”Woodyard agreed that

Medicaid expansionwould be a solution.Piranfar will wrap up

his education with aninternship in Reno nextMay.Now he’s thinking,

“Maybe I could just getMedicaid when I move toNevada.”

Audrey Dutton covershealth care for theStatesman. The college andgraduateschool sheattended bothrequireinsuranceand offerstudent plansthat, for2015-2016, cost $181 and$232 per month,respectively.208-377-6448,@IDS_Audrey

FROM PAGE 1C

HEALTH CARE ‘‘PREVIOUSLY, I WAS COVERED BY SHIP(AT) $1,024 PER SEMESTER, TAKENDIRECTLY FROM MY GRANTS ANDSTUDENT LOANS. ... MY CURRENTCOVERAGE (COSTS) $1,410 PERSEMESTER. I HAVE A $5,000 ANNUALDEDUCTIBLE, AND NOTHING ISCOVERED UNTIL THAT AMOUNT IS MET.BECAUSE I GO TO SCHOOL FULL TIME,AND ONLY WORK PART TIME, I DO NOTQUALIFY FOR ANY SORT OFASSISTANCE WITH THIS COST. I SIMPLYPAY FOR INSURANCE I CAN’T AFFORDTO USE.Anthony Reynolds, Boise State student

‘‘I EVEN GOT HOLD OF ONE OF THEYOUR HEALTH IDAHO COUNSELORS,AND THEY COULDN’T BELIEVE MYSITUATION. THEY WERE AT A LOSS.Amir Piranfar, Idaho State University-Meridianpharmacy student