Effective December 1, 2025, Magellan Healthcare will be discontinuing several essential behavioral health services in Idaho, including adult peer support, partial hospitalization programs, and transportation and mileage reimbursements. These decisions will devastate Idaho’s behavioral health system, leaving thousands of our most vulnerable residents without critical supports that sustain their stability, safety, and recovery.

For many Idahoans, these are not optional services. They are lifelines. Peer support, transportation, and partial hospitalization programs prevent psychiatric hospitalization, relapse, incarceration, and even suicide. Eliminating these services will dismantle the very framework that allows people to recover, maintain employment, and live independently. Removing them will directly increase hospitalizations, homelessness, and imprisonment, and that cost will ultimately be borne by taxpayers and communities already stretched thin.

Beyond the human toll, this action threatens hundreds of Idaho behavioral health workers who have dedicated their lives to serving others. It will close programs that took years to build, many of which are evidence based and federally endorsed as best practices in recovery and reentry. To strip away these supports with little warning or transition planning is not just shortsighted. It is unconscionable.

We implore you to act immediately. Idaho deserves better. We urge legislative oversight to prevent the erosion of behavioral health infrastructure that Idahoans depend on.

We stand together, clients, families, and providers, in solidarity. We are pleading for Idaho’s leadership to ensure that no Idahoan is left without the care and support they need to survive and thrive. Please act now to protect our communities, our workforce, and our most vulnerable citizens.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one in four Idahoans will experience a mental health issue at some point in their life. Cutting vital services when mental health is such a pressing concern means leaving vulnerable individuals without the support they desperately need. It is an urgent matter that requires the immediate attention of Idaho’s community leaders, policymakers, and healthcare providers.

We must urge the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare and Magellan Healthcare to reconsider their decision and work together with state officials to maintain and improve Idaho's behavioral health services. By joining hands and speaking out, we can protect those in need of support and ensure a sustainable, compassionate healthcare system that serves everyone, especially the most vulnerable.

I implore you to sign this petition and express your support for maintaining these essential services. Together, we can make our voices heard and advocate for the continuous availability of behavioral health services in Idaho.