The Alaska Senate voted unanimously, 20-0, on Wednesday to approve a bill to increase the availability of the overdose-prevention drug Naloxone.<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 23 now heads to Gov. Bill Walker, who is expected to sign it at 9 a.m. Monday in the Capitol.<\/p>\n
SB 23 provides legal protection for those providing and administering the drug, which stops the physical effect of a heroin or opiate painkiller overdose. <\/p>\n
With legal protection in place, the drug is expected to be easier to obtain. Opioid overdoses have become a significant problem in Alaska, with seven people in Juneau dying of heroin-related overdoses in 2015.<\/p>\n
The bill previously passed the Senate and House unanimously but had to return to the Senate so lawmakers there could agree with the changes the House made in the bill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe changes that took place in the other body made a good bill better,\u201d said Sen. Johnny Ellis, D-Anchorage and the bill\u2019s prime sponsor.<\/p>\n
In other business Wednesday, the Senate also approved a bill that allows insurance companies to automatically use a customer\u2019s credit history when setting that customer\u2019s rates. Under existing state law, a company can use credit history when the customer first signs up, but not when the insurance policy is renewed each year.<\/p>\n
Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, was among the five votes against Senate Bill 127, which was approved 15-5 but held in the Senate after the vote for reconsideration.<\/p>\n
Wielechowski said people can already give permission for automobile insurance companies to use their credit histories \u2014 it just takes a waiver. This bill would expose people with poor credit histories to higher insurance rates, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople who can least afford it will see increases,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sen. Charlie Huggins, R-Wasilla and the bill\u2019s prime sponsor, said customers can simply switch to another company if their rates rise. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can go to Company B if you don\u2019t like what they\u2019re offering you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Sen. Click Bishop, R-Fairbanks, said all 49 other states already have laws allowing insurers to use credit history, and Alaska will now be \u201cone of 50 states that allows this … instead of the one state that doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
SB 127 now goes to the House of Representatives for consideration.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the Senate also declined to reconsider its 19-1 Monday vote on Senate Bill 18, which would exempt church health ministries from regulation as health insurance. That bill also heads to the House for consideration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Alaska Senate voted unanimously, 20-0, on Wednesday to approve a bill to increase the availability of the overdose-prevention drug Naloxone. Senate Bill 23 now heads to Gov. Bill Walker, who is expected to sign it at 9 a.m. Monday in the Capitol. SB 23 provides legal protection for those providing and administering the drug, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5613"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}