This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2015, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

A new plan to help more of Utah's poor get health insurance is scheduled to get its first public hearing Tuesday after GOP officials spent the summer hammering it out behind closed doors.

Lawmakers on a health reform committee will invite doctors and others to comment on the plan, which the Legislature is expected to consider during a special session later this year.

Republican Gov. Gary Herbert is one of six GOP officials who came up with the Medicaid plan, which uses a chunk of federal money under President Barack Obama's 2010 health care law to pay for more people to get insurance.

Herbert proposed a plan to cover thousands of the state's poor with private health insurance. Republican lawmakers rejected that earlier this year, saying they worried it would be too expensive for Utah and the costs could spiral out of control, among other concerns.

Since then, Herbert and top Republicans in the House and Senate have been meeting secretly all summer, working on a similar plan that requires doctors, hospitals and others to pay Utah's $55 million cost of the program.

The federal government is offering to pay the rest of the cost, about $450 million.

The group of six Republicans who came up with Utah's plan said doctors, hospitals and other providers will benefit by having more insured patients.

The Utah Medical Association has already come out against the proposal, saying doctors shouldn't be required to help pay for expanding a government program. Under the plan, licensing fees that doctors pay every other year would jump to about $800, up from about $250.

If Utah lawmakers sign off on the plan, they'll send it to federal health officials who must also approve it.

Lawmakers say the earliest the plan could start to kick in would be next summer.

Democrats and advocacy groups have complained that Utah's Republican-dominated Legislature wasted time and money by failing to expand the program years ago, when the federal government first offered the money.

There is no deadline to approve a Medicaid plan, but Utah misses out on federal money and thousands of its residents remain unable to afford insurance unless the state expands Medicaid.