BOISE — The lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of voter-passed Proposition 2, the Medicaid expansion initiative, is “meritless,” the Idaho Attorney General’s office contends in arguments filed with the Idaho Supreme Court — and so groundless that the Idaho Freedom Foundation should be ordered to pay the state’s legal costs to defend the new law.

The Freedom Foundation, with its board chairman, Brent Regan, as the named plaintiff, sued to overturn the law that voters backed with more than 60 percent support in November, saying it unconstitutionally delegates state legislative authority to the federal government and the state Department of Health & Welfare.

“The petition is meritless,” wrote Deputy Idaho Attorney General Scott Zanzig. The new law, he wrote, “does not delegate any authority to the federal government as petitioner contends. Nor does it unlawfully delegate legislative authority to the Department of Health & Welfare. Any delegation to the department is well within established law and consistent with the existing Medicaid program. Thus, the petition raises no legitimate issues.”

Zanzig wrote that Medicaid is an optional program for states, and Idaho participates in it only with the annual assent and appropriation of funds by its state Legislature. That wouldn’t change under the initiative, he wrote.

The Freedom Foundation contends that by signing Idaho up to expand Medicaid to cover the estimated 62,000 Idahoans who now fall into a coverage gap, making too much to qualify for the current Medicaid program but not enough to qualify for subsidized health insurance through the state insurance exchange, the state also is agreeing in advance to possible future federal changes in the program, including increasing the state’s required funding match.

Zanzig said that’s not the case. “Petitioner’s claims rest upon a series of ‘what ifs,’” he wrote.

Any federal changes to the Medicaid program in the future “would be considered optional for states to adopt because they could be interpreted as an impermissible post-acceptance or retroactive condition,” he wrote. Under federal law, existing funds couldn’t be pulled, and the state would have the option of complying with future changes or not.

Under Medicaid expansion, the state would pay 10 percent of the costs, and federal taxes would cover the other 90 percent. The lawsuit raises the specter of the federal government sharply cutting its funding share.

“The hypothetical harm petitioner alleges will occur only if Congress acts and the Idaho Legislature fails to act,” Zanzig wrote. “No evidence demonstrates the likelihood of either happening.”

“Medicaid is an optional program designed to encourage states to accept federal funds to cover medical services for blind, disabled, elderly and needy families with dependent children,” Zanzig wrote. “States have the ability to opt in or out of Medicaid at any time, but opting in requires states to provide a match of federal funds.”

Under the Idaho Constitution, “Money can be drawn from the Idaho treasury only through an appropriation made by law.” Thus, “The Legislature never delegates its vested authority because the appropriation is an annual new law with regard to Medicaid.”

He also contended the law doesn’t delegate legislative authority to the Department of Health & Welfare, saying instead it sets specific tasks for the department to complete, pursuant to the law.

“If the court were to accept petitioner’s impermissible delegation argument here, it would be tantamount to declaring Idaho’s entire Medicaid program unconstitutional,” Zanzig wrote.

He also offered a series of procedural arguments in favor of dismissing the case, including questioning both the plaintiffs’ standing to sue and the jurisdiction of the Idaho Supreme Court to take up the case, as opposed to requiring it first to be filed with a lower court.

Both the Freedom Foundation and a group of intervening parties, including two Idaho moms, a doctor and the Idaho Medical Association, will file their written arguments in the case this week. Oral arguments are set for Jan. 29.

In a footnote in his brief, Zanzig addressed a Dec. 14 federal court ruling in Texas that found the entire 2010 healthcare reform law, including Medicaid expansion, unconstitutional, even though its constitutionality already has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Idaho was not a party to the Texas case, Zanzig wrote. “It is important to note that that decision does not impose a nationwide injunction or impact Idaho’s Medicaid expansion efforts in any way.”