Health

WASHINGTON — Unless Congress steps in with a solution, thousands of Alaskans will lose health insurance subsidies at the end of December and see the cost of their premiums shoot up.

For a dramatic example of what will happen, consider an Alaska couple in their 60s who earn about $53,000 a year each.

They now pay less than 9% of their income to get two silver-level plans. If their subsidies go away, they’d spend almost 50% of their income to keep those insurance plans.

That’s an impossible increase, said Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

“Now, you tell me, who out there can find an additional half of their income to go towards insurance?” she asked.

This fictitious middle-aged, middle-income couple are a subset of the roughly 25,000 Alaskans who buy subsidized insurance plans. They are small-business owners and their employees, fishermen or people who work for non-profits — really, anybody who earns modest pay and does not have employer-sponsored insurance.

The imaginary couple, and a few thousand Alaskans like them, would be affected the most if what’s known as “enhanced premium tax credits” expire at the end of the year. But nearly every Alaskan who buys insurance on the marketplace would see their payments rise, too. Ultimately, it strains the health care system everyone relies on, especially so in Alaska, where health insurance rates are among the highest in the nation.

Murkowski isn’t the only person in Congress to notice. The expiring subsidies are at the heart of the budget standoff that has the government teetering on the edge of a shutdown.

Murkowski thinks the list of Democratic demands to avoid a shut down goes too far, but she agrees with them that the enhanced premium tax credits shouldn’t expire this year.

“As we look to how we keep the government open, let’s also figure out how we avoid this looming crisis with the cost of insurance,” she said.

The enhanced tax credits were adopted during the COVID pandemic. They increased the original Affordable Care Act subsidies, and for the first time, extended them to people who earned more than the initial group, such as the fictitious 60-year-olds in our example.

If the enhanced credits disappear, leaving only the classic ACA subsidies, the Alaska Division of Insurance calculates on average, subsidized consumers would have to pay more than double what they pay now.

“Doubling and tripling of premiums is substantial. I think it’s fair to say we can expect to lose quite a few Alaskans in terms of having insurance coverage,” said Alaska Hospital & Healthcare Association President Jared Kosin.

He predicts some people will stop buying insurance, then stop getting routine care at clinics and doctors’ offices.

“They have nowhere else to go, and so that starts to put more pressure on emergency rooms,” he said. “It puts more pressure on hospitals, because that care will be completely unpaid for.”

State Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, foresees cascading effects, just when a number of poorer Alaskans are losing coverage from Medicaid.

“And we all know that uninsured people increases uncompensated care, which increases costs for everybody else,” she said.

The Alaska Legislature passed a resolution this spring calling on Alaska’s congressional delegation to press for an extension of the tax credits.

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan did not grant an interview request. A spokeswoman said by email that he’s talking to colleagues and the Trump administration to try to prevent the expiration of the subsidies.

Congressman Nick Begich’s office did not grant an interview request nor provide a statement.

State prosecutors will retry the sexual assault case against a former Juneau chiropractor facing 13 charges. They stated their intention to move forward at a hearing Tuesday.

Prosecutor Krystyn Tendy said the details of how many charges will be retried are still being determined. 

It’s been nearly three weeks since the sexual assault trial against a former Juneau chiropractor ended with two acquittals and 14 charges declared mistrial. Last week, the judge in the case dismissed one of those charges. That means that though Jeffery Fultz wasn’t found guilty, the remaining 13 charges are still active. Those are the charges the state may retry.

More than a dozen former patients have accused Jeffrey Fultz of sexual assault under the guise of medical care between 2014 and 2020 while he worked at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau. 

At a hearing Tuesday, Fultz’s attorneys said they are withdrawing from the case.

A representation hearing to determine Fultz’s future legal representation is scheduled for Sept. 30 at noon.

Rain poured down in Juneau on Sunday, but that didn’t stop residents from going to Tracy’s Crab Shack for a night of music from the local band The High Costa Livin’. Under covered tents, attendees lined up for food and were surrounded by a silent auction, a raffle and a bake sale.

Tracy’s hosted one of more than 15 local fundraisers working to help a young Juneau resident go on a clinical trial for a rare genetic disease. Emma Jobsis is the mother of four-year-old Cade Jobsis.

“People that I haven’t even asked, I haven’t even talked to, are texting, calling, wanting to be a part of this,” she said. “And I’m just so grateful because there’s no way we could do this alone.”

She says fundraising efforts started a couple years ago, when Cade was diagnosed with SPG50, a rare disease where a child gradually loses their cognitive and motor function. There is no cure.

“When we got the diagnosis, the doctors told us to take him home, love him. There was nothing they could do,” Jobsis said.

But there is an experimental treatment that she says was developed by the father of a child with the same disease. Its creation had a hefty price tag. Jobsis said she and several other families raised the $3 million to create the treatment. For Jobsis, that was largely done through social media campaigns.

Now, the Juneau family is fundraising again so Cade can use the new treatment. They need to raise $1.15 million for hospital and regulatory fees to do a clinical trial for Cade. Jobsis said fundraising largely falls on families, despite her efforts to raise funds through the government and pharmaceutical companies.

“It’s not lucrative, and they’re never even going to see their money again,” she said. “So the only people that care to get treatments are parents of children that have this childhood disease. And so as parents, we came together — four families — and we said, ‘We have to do this. We have to raise the money, because nobody else is going to. Nobody else cares like we do.’”

The Juneau community has been responding in a big way. Jobsis said as of Sunday evening, they had raised $357,000. She said Cade can begin treatment in November if they have 80% of the funds in escrow by Oct. 20. 

Juneau resident Kelsey Riker was at the event, eating dinner in the crowded tent. She’s the manager at Kindred Post, a local gift shop and post office. Riker said it’s great to see the community act in a huge way.

“While this community support has been such a bright light, I also think this should not be necessary for anyone, especially a little kid born with a thing that we don’t know much about,” Riker said.

But Riker said she wants to continue to be part of the effort to raise money.

“If there are ways to be fighting a very broken system by rallying around our community, then that is something that I want to be a part of,” she said.

Tom Ainsworth made his way into the tent with the festivities. He is a retired weather forecaster and said he’s glad to see everybody supporting the cause. He got emotional when he talked about why he came to support the family.

“Well, we have a grandson about the same age, and I can’t imagine going through what they’re going through,” Ainsworth said.

Jobsis estimated on Monday they raised another $50,000 from the weekend’s fundraisers. They have to raise about $738,000 more to reach their goal. The family will continue raising money for Cade’s treatment with fundraisers in and beyond Juneau.

Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium is yet again expanding its services in Juneau. 

This time, a spokesperson says the Alaska Native-run health care organization is renovating the former Planned Parenthood building in Lemon Creek into a new specialty care clinic. 

The future clinic will offer cardiology, dermatology and rheumatology services. Construction is underway and the organization’s goal is to open the facility later this fall. 

The building formerly housed Juneau’s Planned Parenthood, which permanently closed last November. Planned Parenthood said it closed the building because it needed expensive repairs and the Trump administration has threatened the organization’s funding.

Its closure means Juneau and the surrounding Southeast Alaska communities have less access to reproductive healthcare. The remaining two Planned Parenthood health centers are Fairbanks and Anchorage.

SEARHC’s new clinic will not offer reproductive healthcare services. According to SEARHC, the project is a part of the health care organization’s “commitment to expand access to high-demand specialty services in Juneau.”

The spokesperson says bringing the multiple services under one roof will make it more convenient and coordinated for patients receiving care. 

SEARHC has rapidly expanded its services in Juneau and Southeast Alaska in recent years. In the past two years, it has acquired Southeast Medical Clinic, Juneau Youth Services, Juneau Obstetrics and Gynecology and Juneau Physical Therapy – and many other clinics throughout the region. This spring, it announced plans to build a new dental clinic in Mendenhall Valley.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lisa Murkowski broke from other Republicans on the Senate health committee at a hearing Wednesday on the firing last month of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Murkowski said the hearing was about more than Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s decision to terminate Susan Monarez.

“It’s about trust in our public health institutions,” Murkowski said, “because that’s what I’m worried most about.”

The hearing focused on the nation’s vaccine policy. Kennedy dismissed a panel of vaccine experts in June and replaced them with his chosen members, who mostly share his belief that the CDC’s previously recommended vaccine schedule is bad for children.

Vaccine skepticism is gaining ground across the United States, though dozens of medical associations say the vaccine schedule is based on scientific evidence, saves lives and protects public health.

Monarez testified that Kennedy fired her because she would not agree to pre-approve whatever the new vaccine panel decides, and because she refused to fire career scientists at the CDC who don’t share Kennedy’s anti-vaccine beliefs.

Republicans on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee were split. Some criticized the former CDC director for resisting Kennedy’s agenda. Others, like Murkowski, backed a science-based approach to vaccines.

CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry resigned after Monarez was fired. Houry testified at the hearing that she was the last career employee in the CDC director’s office. Murkowski sounded astonished that political appointees are replacing public health experts.

“May I stop you there?” she said, interrupting Houry. “You’re the last career [employee]. So then are you saying that everyone that is remaining is a political?”

Houry affirmed that’s the case in the CDC director’s office.

“And so there is nobody then that is — there must be somebody that is providing that career science,” Murkowski said.

Houry mentioned the directors of the centers within the CDC, though she said most are acting directors because their predecessors were fired or left.

Monarez said Kennedy ordered her not to speak to the career CDC scientists.

Murkowski, like all but one Republican senator, voted to confirm Kennedy in February, despite her misgivings about his vaccine stance.

Kennedy had pledged to senators he’d change CDC recommendations only if based on peer-reviewed and widely accepted science.

The Kennedy-aligned vaccine panel meets Thursday. Monarez said Kennedy told her two days before she was fired that the childhood vaccine schedule would change in September.

The CDC vaccine schedule isn’t mandatory but it may determine which injections health insurance plans will cover.

Lawyers are trading arguments in a case challenging the state’s failure to process applications for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program on time.

The case dates back to 2023. The number of Alaskans caught in the SNAP backlog has dropped by roughly 75% since plaintiffs filed the class action lawsuit, but the backlog still hovers around 4,000 as the state’s struggle to process applications on time has continued.

Saima Akhtar with the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said her team is asking the court to rule that Alaska’s SNAP system violates low-income Alaskans’ rights.

“The first step is essentially the court assessing whether or not the facts as they are laid out in the record constitute a legal violation,” she said. “And then after that, the question would be, what’s the fix?”

Lawsuits like this have helped in other states, Akhtar said.

“There are a number of states where there has been litigation and there has been a resolution that led to processing improvements,” she said in a phone interview.

Akhtar and her team obtained a preliminary injunction in the case last year requiring the state to report on its progress as it works to catch up on the backlog. It’s possible that could be converted to a permanent injunction.

State attorneys have filed a variety of arguments asking the court to decide the case in their favor. In one filing, state attorneys say that a recent U.S. Supreme Court case means that private individuals shouldn’t have a right to sue over the state’s failure to meet deadlines in federal law. In others, state attorneys say many of the issues highlighted in the suit have been resolved.

A Department of Law spokesperson said attorneys are reviewing the recent filings.

A decision isn’t expected for months. In the meantime, Akhtar says people struggling to access SNAP or other benefits can contact Alaska Legal Services for help.