I am writing to encourage your readers to contact U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan with their position on the anti-Alaska Senate Health Care Bill. A hundred things are wrong with it, but I will focus here on what it does to Medicaid in Alaska, which is the most immediately cruel and dangerous. Among those most to be harmed are the disabled, those trapped in the opioid epidemic, the mentally ill, and those afflicted and to be afflicted by preventable diseases such as diabetes.
But those most hurt will be families, women and children, half of whom in Alaska are born and their wellness looked after through health care provided by Medicaid.
Alaska also will be deeply damaged financially. Prisoner health care costs will revert to the state. All of Alaska’s hospitals will again be required to absorb the costs of people who have lost health care. Municipalities will be asked to take up the slack, and so will health care plans. They will be forced to raise costs to cover costs raised by hospitals and health care providers to treat people who no longer have health care. Alaska is in steep financial recession. Its investment seed money is being eaten at a ruinous rate to balance the budget. This Senate health care bill, even more than the bill from the House, will seriously worsen Alaska’s bad financial condition.
Alaska is not alone. Nevada, West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Ohio, Arizona and others are in similar positions. They cannot afford the costs this bill creates by making millions of people sick and sicker without the healthcare they now have.
Women especially, though, are discriminated against. First the bill takes health care away from low-income women, and then it blocks even Planned Parenthood from being paid to provide women with life-saving health care services such as tests (and referrals if needed) for cervical cancer, breast cancer, and sexually transmitted diseases.
This bill negatively affects 1/6 of the nation’s economy, immediately takes health care from 14 million Americans, and the number is predicted to rise to 24 million. It seriously harms Alaska’s economy and promotes (by ceasing to treat and prevent) expensive sickness among 1/4 of Alaska’s population. It devastates the most vulnerable Alaskans and Americans. And in particular, it undermines the health of women and their families throughout the country—but none more per capita than in Alaska.
Now is the time to stand up for Alaska and our country and against this unrealistic, financially harmful, and impractical bill. Our senators should turn it down because it will deeply hurt Alaska financially and because it targets our most vulnerable citizens.
• Art Petersen is a resident of Juneau and professor emeritus of the University of Alaska Southeast.
