Dustin Hurst reports the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee approved $4 million in funding to ready Idaho’s Medicaid system for integration with an online exchange portal.

Most of the money, about $3.6 million in all, comes from a federal match program. The state is asked to pay 10 percent of the costs, or about $400,000 of the initial allocation.

The money approved Monday is a first for the process to ready Medicaid for the exchange, which is an online insurance purchase portal similar to Amazon.com. The Medicaid administration agency, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, says readying the state’s systems for the exchange will take at least $35 million in funding, mostly for technological support upgrades.