POST FALLS - State Rep. Ed Morse's challenger Eric Redman believes Morse is a moderate who was wrong to support a state health insurance exchange.

The two took part Friday in a Republican primary candidate forum at the Red Lion Templin's Hotel, hosted by the Panhandle Pachyderm Club.

Redman, of Athol, is a retired insurance company owner and past president of the North Idaho Chapter of the National Association of Health Underwriters.

According to Redman, there are many ways to improve the nation's health care system, and "Obamacare" is not one of them.

"I'm very passionate about that area," Redman said.

Redman supports medical procedure cost transparency, which would allow consumers of health care to shop around. He also wants to see secure digital records that follow the patient.

Consumers, he said, should be able to buy insurance across state lines, and be allowed to choose coverage plans without federal mandates.

Morse, of Hayden, took the time to answer critics of his vote for the state health insurance exchange.

He opposes Obamacare, he said. But since Idaho can't repeal federal legislation, and the state had to have an exchange of some kind, he believed a state-based version run by a private nonprofit was the best of the bad options.

If the state Legislature opted to do nothing, a federal exchange would have been imposed.

"I think the best (legal) case against Obamacare is yet to come," Morse said.

He said it has been determined to be tax legislation by the U.S. Supreme Court, so it could not have been challenged legally until someone was forced to pay the tax. That time is close at hand, he said.

He said the state Legislature and Gov. Butch Otter opted for a state exchange to preserve local control, privacy and choice for consumers, and cost efficiency.

State Rep. Frank Henderson, of Post Falls, who is retiring at the end of his term in December, came to Morse's defense and criticized Redman for either not reading the legislation passed in Boise or simply misinterpreting it.

"The state exchange is a smaller unit of (government) activity than the federal exchange," Henderson said.

He said the state exchange doesn't use state funds, and operates independent of the state.

"In the state exchange we have, there is specific prohibition of funding Planned Parenthood," Henderson said.

Morse said by voting for and passing a state exchange the state lost no legal standing to challenge Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act, in court down the road.

He said another legal case opposing the federal tax legislation can be made because the legislation originated in the U.S. Senate, when technically, tax legislation needs to originate in the House.