• Idaho law already protects parental choice. Current state law allows parents to opt out of school and daycare immunization requirements for any reason. Families already have full authority to decide what is best for their children. Because this flexibility already exists, the bill addresses a problem that does not currently exist.

• Weakens effective public health protections. Immunization requirements for diseases such as measles, mumps, and rubella have helped prevent outbreaks and protect children in school and daycare settings. With measles cases rising again in some areas, removing or weakening long-standing immunization structures could increase risk to children, especially infants and those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.

• H808 would undermine the ability of Idaho schools to protect students and staff by shifting vaccine status reporting from opt-out to opt-in. While that may sound procedural, the impact is significant: schools would no longer have reliable vaccination rate data. Without this, school personnel cannot make informed decisions about mitigation during outbreaks of measles, whooping cough, flu, or other communicable diseases. In addition, a recent poll showed that a majority (72%) of Republicans support our current opt-out system.

• The bill would also prohibit schools, daycares, and universities from requiring vaccines. This bill is unnecessary, as Idaho already allows parents freedom to choose, and our exemption procedure is currently one of the easiest in the country. Also, evidence strongly suggests that looser vaccine requirements lead to lower immunization rates, leading to more vaccine-preventable disease in vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and our youngest children.

For families, this means greater risk of preventable outbreaks, more missed school days, and increased strain on working parents when classrooms or facilities must close due to illness. 

For the more than one thousand Idaho children with cancer or other diagnoses that cannot receive vaccines, this means they cannot rely on others in the community to protect them from potentially deadly vaccine-preventable diseases.

Bottom Line:

• H808 adds complexity and cost to a system that already works.

• Idaho’s current immunization policies protect children while preserving full parental choice.

• Rather than weakening a successful framework, the Legislature should maintain the system that Idaho families and healthcare providers already rely on.

• H808 prioritizes ideology over practical, data-driven public health management.

• It weakens local control, limits institutional flexibility, and reduces protections for children and families.