Thomas says many websites have popped up that are similar in appearance to healthcare.gov, but there is only one official site for quotes and information under the Affordable Care Act.

Andrea Thomas is the Patient Health Benefits Manager at SEARHC. She and her staff are available to help anyone enroll in Medicaid or other health plans available in the ACA Marketplace. The deadline to enroll this year is December 15. Depending on your age and income level, you could have a premium as low as $1 per month.

For local help navigating the ACA Marketplace, call Thomas at 966-8863 (966-8405 Español). The national, 24-hour number is 800-318-2596.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski told the Sitka Chamber that there’s good news/bad news regarding Judge Brett Kavanaugh. “The good news is that he’s been on the federal bench 12 years and has written over 300 opinions. That’s also the bad news!” Murkowski says Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have requested 900,000 pages of material to review. “So don’t expect hearings in August,” she said. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is not showing any of her cards, as theSenate is poised to begin confirmation hearings on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the US Supreme Court.

In remarks to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday (8-8-18), Sen. Murkowski said “I will be guilty of taking my time.”

Downloadable audio.

Alaska’s senior senator is again in the political spotlight as attention turns to the confirmation hearings, which could take place as early as this fall.

Ever since she defied Republican party politics and cast a no vote on the so-called “skinny repeal” of the Affordable Care Act last year (along with senators Susan Collins and John McCain), Murkowski has been seen as a moderate swing vote in a senate that has grown increasingly polarized along party lines.

The Kavanaugh nomination has been characterized by opponents as an attempt by President Trump to stack the court with justices likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling which made abortion legal.

Murkowski, however, is regarded as a supporter of women’s rights. She’s also a lawyer, and she’s going to personally read some of Kavanaugh’s opinions, and then meet with the judge in person later this month.

Murkowski told the Sitka Chamber that her thoughtful approach has already inflamed people on both sides of the issue.

“I have done something — call it a little bit novel — but I said I actually want to do a little studying about this person before I sit down, because I want to be able to ask informed questions,” she said. “I want to do my due diligence. Well I tell you I’ve gotten heat from both sides on this. Some people are like, ‘You need to say NO yesterday!’ Okay, I appreciate your view, but just allow me the time to really dig into this and to be able to ask questions and to be able to listen to what’s going on at the hearings. Others are saying ‘You need to support Trump’s person yesterday!’ So it’s the proverbial Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t. I will be guilty of taking my time to do my homework.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski touched on a number of issues in her hour-long presentation to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce Wednesday, including her success in moving appropriations bills for the Forest Service, earthquake monitoring, and essential air service.

She strongly backed building a new ice breaker for the Arctic, suggesting that with so much attention on the US southern border, Congress was neglecting the northern border.

Murkowski said she was concerned over President Trump’s trade strategy, which has prompted retaliatory tariffs on on Alaskan seafood and petroleum exports.

She also had strong words for the administration’s controversial policy of separating detained parents and children at the border — since reversed by the president — saying “We are a country of compassion. We don’t rip families apart.”

And in response to audience questions, Murkowski supported net neutrality, access to financial services for Alaska’s legal cannabis industry, and for action on climate change. “We’re a fossil fuel state,” she said, “but we’re seeing impacts in our coastal communities that should be a wakeup call.”

The Supreme Court selection process has always been politically volatile. Republicans successfully blocked confirmation hearings on the nomination of Merrick Garland, President Obama’s pick in 2016, the final year of his presidency. And Republican senate president Mitch McConnell in 2017 engineered a change in senate rules to require only a 51-percent majority to confirm a justice — which happens to be exactly the current number of Republican seats — and it proved to be critical maneuver to the successful appointment of President Trump’s first nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

Murkowski says she doesn’t know if her role as a Supreme Court swing vote has had any specific bearing on her personal legislative agenda. In a conversation with Sitka media following her chamber presentation, she remarked on a stronger sense of collaboration among her Republican senate colleagues — and it’s working for her.

“When you have a one-vote margin, it almost by definition requires you to figure it out together, because otherwise that one person going south can make all the difference,” she said. “Some would say a very narrow margin is an awful thing legislatively. I think it actually forces a level of cooperation between the two parties, and that can be useful because I am one who is known to work across the aisle on many issues. I have colleagues who come to me and say ‘Can we build something here, instead of blowing things up all the time? And I think that puts me in a position of being able to help advance some things that are good priorities.”

With the Senate returning to work early this August, Murkowski will only visit Southeast on this trip. She’s unhappy about the shorter-than-usual Senate recess, since it doesn’t allow her time to travel the state. As a result, she quipped to the Sitka Chamber, “I’m known as the chair of the Cranky Caucus.”

One month remains to enroll in a health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act. Andrea Thomas works for SEARHC providing outreach and enrollment services free to Sitkans. She says this year is the shortest enrollment period to date, and time is of the essence.

“For people who are uninsured, this is your window of opportunity to sign up for insurance on the marketplace,” says Thomas. “There’s some people who are on the marketplace already, and this is their only time to renew. If you miss that opportunity, you’re really out of luck until next year.”

According to Thomas, this year is a bit different. Not only is the sign up period shorter, but plan prices have gone down for Alaskans.

“The state of Alaska worked with the federal government to do a waiver,” says Thomas. “We had a group of very expensive people and they pulled those people out, paying for them in a different way which has dropped the cost of insurance down 26 to 30 percent.”

Thomas’s office is federally funded and they’ve added Saturday hours for the open enrollment period.

“There’s something really helpful with speaking to somebody local and we’re really familiar with the plans that are offered, and we can share information about how to use your coverage, and we can help you after your coverage, because people run into all kinds of problems too, after the fact,” says Thomas.

Open enrollment ends on December 15. You can find more information on how to contact Thomas’s office here.

While in Sitka on Friday, Senator Lisa Murkowski toured Mt. SEARHC’s Edgecumbe Hospital with Facilities Director Greg McIntyre. Her Senate vote the night before quashed a Republican-led effort to repeal Obamacare. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

Less than 24 hours after her critical vote on health care, Senator Lisa Murkowski returned to her home state. In Sitka on Friday (7-28-17), she sat down with reporters for her first in-depth interview. Murkowski told KCAW that the bill on the floor wasn’t ready for a vote and left Alaskans in the dark about the future of their health insurance.

Downloadable audio.

If Senator Lisa Murkowski is in the eye of a political power struggle over health care, you wouldn’t know it from her overnight appearance in Sitka. The vote ended after 2 a.m. She was on a plane at 8 a.m. to tour Mt. Edgecume Hospital, meet with local leaders, and go fishing with her son.

“I’m happy,” she told KCAW and the Daily Sitka Sentinel. “And then I have to go back to D.C.”

Back to D.C., where her “no” vote on Thursday (7-25-17) helped kill a Republican-led effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Murkowski agrees with President Donald Trump that the law is flawed.”We still have high costs, high premiums, we still have limited access,” she said, but she thinks there are parts of Obamacare worth saving — particularly around Medicaid expansion.

In explaining her vote, she focused her criticism on process: on attempting to repeal Obamacare without a replacement system, writing policies behind closed doors without a committee, and going to the floor sans support from Democrats. She compared it to 2010, when the Affordable Care Act was passed without a Republican vote. “We’ve been blaming the Democrats about that for years.And now we’re going to do it as Republicans just the same way they did? Passing this one on our own? Why would we not come together?” Murkowski said.

After she voted on Tuesday (7-24-17) against advancing the so-called “skinny repeal,” Trump tweeted that she let the country down.

Senator @lisamurkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2017

Murkowski also said Trump called her on the phone.

Murkowski: The President and I had a very hard phone call. He was very direct.

KCAW: How do you stand that pressure though? When the President of the United States calls you and wants a piece of partisan legislation to go through?

Murkowski: You know….that’s a good question because there’s a lot at stake with healthcare, where so much is personal to so many. When you know that people are counting on you to be their voice, it really does cause you to stand up a little bit straighter and maybe have a little bit more backbone to just say, “I know everybody is saying this, but I need you to hear this.”

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke also placed a call to both Murkowski and Senator Dan Sullivan.

Of that call, Murkowski said, “I do not believe that Secretary Zinke was being threatening or intimidating. He was just delivering a message that the President was not happy with my vote.” She would not talk about the Zinke call, nor a report from the Alaska Dispatch News that the President would hamper Alaska’s energy and resource development as slap on the wrist for her vote.

When asked whether the alleged threats to Alaska would bear out, Murkowski said, “I don’t believe that threats and intimidation are a good way to win over friends and gain support. But I also recognize that there are different styles of trying to gain support.”

With the Republican Party moving right-of-center, Murkowski’s moderate voice is standing out. She began her Senate career in 2002, appointed by her father and former U.S. Senator and Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski. When she ran for reelection in 2016, she did not endorse Trump.

Murkowski wants any future health care reform to happen in committee, with public hearings and participation from both sides of the aisle. Senators Susan Collins of Maine and John McCain of Arizona seemed to agree with her. Before voting, she says McCain told her on the Senate floor, “Lisa, do what you know is right.

“It reminded me of the old Ted Stevens phrase he would say, ‘To hell with politics. Do what’s right for Alaska,'” Murkowski said.

Murkowski is singing a different tune than she did in 2015, when she voted for an outright repeal of Obamacare. But doing so now, she says – when Alaska has only one health insurance provider – would be irresponsible.

Moving forward, she had choice words for her colleagues about letting the President control the conversation. “You can just say, ‘It’s going to be a tough day and I don’t know how we’re going to get anything done.’ Or the Congress can stand up, get its act together and push back,” Murkowski said.

Speaking of push back, Murkowski was met by a group of protesting Shee Atiká shareholders outside Harrigan Centennial Hall. They’re upset with her support of the corporation’s planned sale of 22,000 acres around Cube Cove to the U.S. Forest Service. That land would be folded into the Admiralty Island National Monument.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski met with Stormy Powell and several other Shee Atiká shareholders who oppose the corporation’s sale of 22,000 acres of Cube Cove land. Murkowski’s bill S.3004 gave that sale traction. (Photo by Clarice Johnson)

Shareholder David Kanosh opposes the land sale and thinks that Murkowski’s faith in Shee Atiká’s current leadership is misguided.”I think she needs to be informed on Shee Atiká’s lack of communication and obstruction of letting shareholders have a voice,” Kanosh said.

That’s not her only land bill. Murkowski also introduced legislation to convey 19 acres of federal land to SEARHC, which is why she was touring Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital.

SEARHC beneficiary Edith Johnson has been following Murkowski’s spotlight in the national health care debate and had a plan if she bumped into the Senator in Sitka. “I would shake her hand and I would say thank you. I feel like she did the right thing,” Johnson said.

Murkowski also met with a handful of local leaders from the City and Borough of Sitka, Sitka Tribe of Alaska, Chamber of Commerce, Sitka Economic Development Association, and Sitka Conservation Society to learn where they’d like federal support. They talked about energy, transportation, and the seafood industry. It was an altogether low-key visit for someone making headlines around the world.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski flew to Sitka hours after casting a deciding vote on health care repeal legislation. She got a hug from Alaska Airlines Sitka Airport Manager Mandy Odenheimer (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)

Less than 24 hours after casting a critical vote on healthcare, Senator Lisa Murkowski was back in her home state of Alaska. She had choice words about voting her conscience, despite pressure from the GOP and President Donald Trump himself.

She had planned a fishing trip in Sitka a month ago. But before chasing salmon, she met with city staff, tribal officials, and leaders from the local business and non-profit sector of Sitka. Murkowski also toured SEARHC’s Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital, where she’s sponsoring a bill to convey 19 acres of federal land to expand the facility.

Constituents there reminded her how a hastily packaged repeal bill would have affected them, confirming her decision to break party rank and buck pressure from colleagues.

“What I heard repeatedly was, ‘I’m worried. It seems like it’s moving so fast and no one really know how it is going to impact me. Can you slow it down?”

Before casting their votes, she said she visited with Arizona Senator John McCain on the floor. “He said, ‘Lisa, do what you know is right. Sometimes around here, it’s just hard to do the things that are right because politics just gets in the way.’ And it reminded me of the old [Alaska Senator] Ted Stevens phrase. He would say, ‘To hell with politics. Just do what’s right for Alaska.'”

In her first extensive interview since the health care vote, Senator Lisa Murkowski said that Secretary Ryan Zinke wouldn’t go into detail about the call. The Alaska Dispatch News reported that he called both her and Senator Dan Sullivan on Wednesday, following a Tweet from President Trump that she “let Republicans and our country down.”

Of that call, Murkowski said Zinke was acting as a messenger for President Donald Trump — who later pressured her with a personal phone call.

“That was a hard phone call,” Murkowski said. “I don’t disagree with the President of the work that we need to do with the ACA [Affordable Care Act.] We have to reform the ACA because we agree that the status quo isn’t acceptable. Where the President and I disagree is with the process, and whether or not the Senate was ready to go to the floor. I didn’t believe that we had a product that had sufficient votes.”

Late Thursday evening, Murkowski – along with McCain and Senator Susan Collins of Maine – voted against the Republican majority and bringing their effort to repeal-and-reform to a screeching halt.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski addresses a joint session of the Alaska Legislature on February 22, 2017. (360 North Photo/Skip Gray)

While many Republican lawmakers are taking an unexpected beating from constituents who are angered by the threat to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski took the middle road.

Murkowski used the congressional recess to make her annual remarks to the Alaska State Legislature last week (2-22-17) , and her position on the ACA — or at least the Medicaid component of the law — was moderate.

“So as long as this legislature wants to keep the expansion, Alaska should have that option. So I will not vote to repeal it.”

Murkowski told legislators that any revision of the ACA produced by the Republican-led congress should retain the more popular features of the current law, like coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Sitka Assembly backs ACA 6-1

The week before Murkowski spoke to the legislature, Sitka’s local government also took a stand on the Affordable Care Act — which is sometimes called Obamacare.

The assembly voted 6-1 to send a resolution in support of the ACA — or in support of any alternative legislation with the same demonstrable benefits.

Downloadable audio.

The only no vote was Steven Eisenbeisz, who thought the assembly was overreaching.

“And I just hope that we continue to realize that we are the local body here, and that we try and stay out of national politics as much as we can. Thank you.”

The resolution was introduced by members Tristan Guevin and Kevin Knox. Guevin argued that it was the assembly’s role to speak collectively for Sitkans on national issues.

“Decisions made at the federal level are having huge impacts on local communities. And I think it is our responsibility as the local government to speak out when things are happening at the state or the federal level are going to adversely impact our city government and our citizens.”

Guevin cited data in the resolution: About 400 Sitkans have signed up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act each year since 2015. 89-percent of them received subsidies to reduce the cost of their monthly premiums.

Resident Wendy Alderson is one of them.

“As a commercial fishing family we have benefitted from the Affordable Care Act since its inception. It’s been a wonderful thing for us. It’s allowed us to afford a comprehensive plan, and since we are able to take advantage of a subsidy — this last year with our health care costs, we probably would have gone bankrupt.”

Alderson said her family was looking at insurance premiums of around $3,000 a month prior to the ACA.

Medicaid expansion has also had an indirect benefit to the community. Guevin said that Sitka Community Hospital performed roughly $500,000 in so-called “charity care” in each of the five years prior to the Affordable Care Act.

Next year, he said, that amount was expected to be around $30,000.

“We ask ourselves Do we want a community hospital? The Affordable Care Act is one of the things that’s keeping the hospital afloat.”

But the ACA has not been a boon to everyone. Some small employers have been hit hard, so have individuals who don’t qualify for subsidies.

Member Bob Potrzuski said this fact should be acknowledged.

“I’m for health care, and I’m for the ACA, but I think we need to recognize, and at least give a nod to the fact that, though the ACA is benefitting a lot of people, it’s also hurting a lot of people.”

The resolution will be forwarded to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, when that cabinet position is appointed. A copy will also go to Sen. Murkowski and the other members of Alaska’s congressional delegation.

Downloadable audio.

The open enrollment period for Alaska’s Health Insurance Marketplace begins today (11-01-16) and continues through January 31, 2017. Andrea Thomas, Outreach and Enrollment Manager at SEARHC, discusses how to qualify, how Alaskans formerly covered by Moda Health – which pulled out of the state marketplace – can switch to Premera Blue Cross, and best practices for keeping coverage.

Downloadable audio.

Note: Alaskans eligible for Medicaid can enroll at any time at healthcare.gov, by calling 1-800-318-2596, or by visiting any Public Assistance Office.

For Alaskans eligible for health insurance in the marketplace, the enrollment deadline is January 30, 2016. Please visit healthcare.gov or call 1-800-318-2596 for complete information.

People enroll for Medicaid the same way they enroll for health insurance in the marketplace: by going online to healthcare.gov, calling the 24-hour number (1-800-318-2596), or filling out a paper application. Local clinics, and agencies like The United Way (in Alaska dial 2-1-1), public assistance centers, and MyAlaska — the state’s web portal — can all steer people in the right direction.

People can apply from Nov. 1 to Jan. 31, 2016 to get coverage for next year. Fines for not having health insurance steeply increase this coming year.

Downloadable audio.

Kreiss-Tomkins’ news was not all bad. Some departments, like Fish & Game, will survive deep cuts without much disruption. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

Despite having to deal with a massive budget deficit, Alaska’s slightly more moderate House of Representatives is working pretty well.

That’s the report from Sitka Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, who spoke to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday (3-4-15).

But Kreiss-Tomkins also said solutions Alaska’s fiscal problems are far beyond the scope of any political shifts in government.

Downloadable audio.

The House Finance Committee is taking testimony from residents in Kreiss-Tomkins’ district this afternoon (Thu 3-5-15) beginning at 4:30 PM. Participants are asked to arrive 15 minutes early and sign in at the Legislative Information Office in the Totem Square building. You’ll have 2-minutes to testify before the Finance Committee on any matter of the state’s budget. For KCAW listeners who don’t have a LIO in their communities, please call 907-465-4648 for instructions on how to call in to the Finance Committee. If you would like to submit a written comment, you can email the committee here.

Just how bad is a $3.5-billion deficit? Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins didn’t need a thesaurus to spell it out.

“It’s dreary, and macabre, and dark.”

Kreiss-Tomkins also portrayed Alaska’s reality in a more concrete way. Residents of the US are accustomed to hearing large deficit and spending figures tossed around. But even for Alaska, $3.5-billion is pretty huge.
He gave two examples.

The first is: The State of Alaska could let go — could fire — every single state employee from Ketchikan, to Kotzebue, to Unalaska, and it would cover about half our budget deficit. About half of the $3.5-billion — every state employee gone. The second anecdote I want to offer: We could zero out all k-12 education funding in the state of Alaska. The Sitka School district gets nothing. Every single school district in the State of Alaska gets nothing. Every regional attendance area gets nothing. The Department of Education gets nothing. We could zero out all state contributions to the State of Alaska university system, and we could zero out every dollar that goes to Medicaid, and that would get us about two-thirds of the way through our budget deficit. So it’s a very, very significant number, a $3.5-billion dollar deficit.

If that was the dreary and the dark news, Kreiss-Tomkins then asked the Chamber to picture the macabre: Oil prices suddenly reverse their slide, and skyrocket back to $150 per barrel. Even this doesn’t close the gap.

Our financial standing doesn’t improve that much because of our new tax regime. If oil becomes wildly profitable, the state’s share of the profit of that oil — at $150 per barrel — is greatly diminished, given all the tax policy we’ve busied ourselves with the last two years, namely SB21.

SB21 — or Senate Bill 21 — was the revision in oil tax regime developed by former Governor Sean Parnell in last year’s legislature. More moderate Republicans, like Sitka’s Sen. Bert Stedman, opposed SB21 on the grounds that it disadvantaged the state. Alaska voters nevertheless refused to repeal SB21 when it appeared on the ballot last year.

But voters did turn out Sean Parnell, and put Bill Walker in the governor’s office. They also elected a more moderate Republican majority in Alaska’s House, which Kreiss-Tomkins said has been positive change.

Yet there is tension now, Kreiss-Tomkins said, because Walker campaigned on accepting the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. Kreiss-Tomkins called it “one of the more important policy calls we’re going to make in Alaska.”

Medicaid expansion, over the short- and medium-term, is a multi-billion dollar infusion into the state economy. It’s a huge infusion of money to health care institutions that currently are responsible for providing charity care for anyone who walks in through the emergency room doors. So there’s a direct financial interest for anyone who cares about our local health care institutions to expand Medicaid.

Under the expansion, states are reimbursed by the federal government for 100-percent of costs through 2016. The amount of the reimbursement then tapers to 90-percent by 2020 — where it would remain indefinitely, unless Congress changes the law. That was the issue for former Gov. Sean Parnell, and it’s the source of the tension now between Gov. Walker and the legislative leadership. What if Alaska is stuck with the check for Medicaid at some point in the future?

In Alaska’s current budget “apocalypse,” as Kreiss-Tomkins calls it, the state has very little to gamble on the future. Alaska can get by on deep, painful cuts for two years, he says, until the state’s savings are gone.

After that, we’re going to make very big decisions that are going to alter the status quo we’ve had in Alaska for the last 40 years.

In addition to budget solvency and Medicaid expansion, Kreiss-Tomkins said that the third major issue before legislature this session was adopting a legal framework for the commercialization of marijuana