Alaska House rejects universal health care proposal from Anchorage Democrat

The Alaska House of Representatives on Friday voted down a proposal by Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, to create a universal health care system open to all residents without regard to cost.

Speaking on the House floor, Gray said, “The time has come for drastic action. We need to blow up the Alaska health care system.”

Gray’s proposal, introduced as an amendment to an unrelated health care bill and billed as a single-payer system, was ruled out of order by Speaker of the House Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, and Tilton’s ruling was upheld by a 23-14 vote.

The decision denied legislators a chance to speak on the merits or negatives of the proposal.

It’s extraordinarily unusual for the House to make major policy changes via floor amendment, but it has happened before. Earlier this year, the House voted to raise the state’s age of sexual consent via a handwritten floor amendment. That decision has not been finalized.

Speaking after Friday’s vote, Gray said he viewed the health care amendment as the first step toward legislative action in 2025 and that he offered it with an eye toward this fall’s legislative elections.

“I’m a freshman legislator. There are many things that I want to do that I just haven’t found the right approach to. I have told lots of folks that if I get reelected, I want to work on health care,” he said after the vote.

Gray’s amendment would have required the Alaska Department of Health to “design and implement” a “single-payer health care program” that would offer full health care, including but not limited to vision, dental, mental health treatment, prescription drugs and hospice care.

Sen. David Wilson, R-Wasilla, is chair of the Senate Health and Social Services Committee and the sponsor of the bill targeted by Gray’s amendment.

Wilson noted several technical flaws with the wording of Gray’s amendment, including what he called a fundamental misunderstanding of how the state currently offers Medicaid.

Before implementing universal care, Alaska would have to first switch from a fee-for-service model of health care to one of managed care, Wilson said.

The United States is the only developed country in the world without a universal health care system, and no American state has implemented one despite dozens of proposals.

Vermont passed a single-payer law in 2011, but that state’s governor canceled the proposal over cost concerns in 2014.

California legislators have repeatedly considered the concept, but the latest idea has also lost support amid a state budget deficit.

According to data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and published by Kaiser Family Foundation, Alaskans spent an average of $13,462 per person for health care in 2020.

Gray said that based on a 2022 estimate of California’s single-payer health care costs, a single-payer system in Alaska would cost about $10,000 per person.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.