Mayor Sullivan jumps into health care fray

That's what Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan suggested this week when he appeared at a news conference with Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska. Begich -- his predecessor as Anchorage mayor -- should have forced a vote on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Sullivan said.

Sullivan and Young were discussing their opposition to listing Cook Inlet's beluga whales as endangered. But when Young was asked about health care -- he said he doesn't think the Senate's reform legislation is good for Alaska and that other states got breaks in the deal-making -- Sullivan stepped in.

"One thing the congressman didn't say but probably wanted to, and I'll say it, is that if there was ever a time for Sen. Begich to use his leverage, his vote, the 60th vote -- I guess all of them could be called the 60th vote -- but now was the time," Sullivan said.

"Where's ANWR? Where's our trade-off for giving up that vote? Somebody told me the comment was made, they didn't want to clutter the issue with the ANWR discussion. Certainly didn't seem to stop other senators from leveraging their vote for something for their state. If there was ever a time where we could have used that leverage for something important to Alaska, I can't imagine when a better opportunity would have been."

Sullivan was referring to concessions some other senators insisted upon in exchange for their vote on the health care bill. Such sweeteners have made news this week, particularly in the case of Sen. Ben Nelson, an anti-abortion Democrat from Nebraska who was persuaded to vote for the legislation only after his state received some serous concessions in the bill.

Nelson, the 60th vote needed to pass the bill today, got a pledge from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid that when the state's Medicaid program expanded under the health care bill, the federal government would pick up the tab for the increased cost of covering more poor people.

Begich himself said in an unrelated interview Wednesday afternoon that he looks upon some of the provisions in the bill as very good for Alaska -- including the reauthorization of the Indian Health Service, a late addition that he called "worth literally hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to us."

But introducing something unrelated to health care would have been wildly inappropriate, said Julie Hasquet, Begich's spokeswoman, adding that "it shows Mayor Sullivan's naivete toward the federal process to think it would be possible."

"There were no lawmakers, Democrats or Republicans, who introduced non-germane amendments to the health care bill," she said. "Perhaps that is why you also didn't see Sen. Murkowski or Rep. Young try to get ANWR into the health reform legislation."

Begich "will continue to focus on the needs of Alaska and the country: jobs, energy and deficit reduction," Hasquet said. "We would hope Mayor Sullivan will focus on the priorities of the city and its residents."

Daily News reporter Don Hunter contributed to this report.