Alaskans, businesses and health care providers need more federal support

During the 2014-2018 economic downturn that hit Alaska with oil prices collapsing by 52%, health care was one of the few bright spots for our state’s economy, providing employment for many Alaskans and ensuring that Alaskans remained healthy. But when COVID-19 struck and we went into statewide lockdown, including a halt to intrastate travel, medical care was severely delayed and restricted at great expense to patients, health care providers, and frontline staff. These sacrifices were for the good of all — to ensure that the health care system could prepare for a massive influx of COVID-19 critical patients — but they have not been easy.

In Alaska, we got lucky during the initial months of the pandemic. Policies worked and helped keep numbers low. But this came at a substantial cost to us all, including health care providers, which saw operational declines as high as 70%, and a collapse in revenue estimated to exceed $200 million over four months. This threatened the viability of our health care system, and Alaska witnessed furloughs and the scourge of possible layoffs in the health care industry. These threats continue. Alaska’s health care providers already struggle to recruit and retain health care professionals, especially in rural Alaska, and any layoffs would mark an exodus of skilled health care professionals from our state.

Seeing the coming solvency crisis of providers across the country, Congress acted swiftly to provide more than $175 billion in the Provider Relief Fund (PRF) and other sources to help support providers who worked to preserve the health security and safety of our communities. But the challenges that precipitated this need for emergency funds have not gone away, and in many ways, have increased.

As we look to the difficult negotiations in Washington, D.C. over the next COVID-19 response legislation, it is important to remember that Alaskans, our economy and our health care system have all been hit hard economically. We must do everything we can to make sure this does not result in permanent damage to small businesses, closure of health care facilities, more job losses or significant delays to health care for patients.

What this all means is that Alaskans need continued support from Congress so that we can continue to pursue our health and safety without threat to our lives and livelihoods. Alaskans should be able to stand at the ready to respond to our growing outbreak without worry of lost incomes, furloughs, or lay-offs crippling our state’s ability to respond to the virus adequately.

This pandemic is really only beginning in Alaska, and has merely just arrived in our most vulnerable, rural, largely Alaska Native communities. Congress must provide additional resources to support the broad public health response in Alaska, especially by supporting individual Alaskans, small businesses and the health care sector through lost revenue support in the next COVID-19 response legislation. This support should meet the needs of Alaskans across the state. Alaska’s health care provider organizations stand ready to help our congressional delegation fight for what our state needs to protect Alaskans against the harms of this pandemic and its economic carnage.

Jared Kosin, J.D., M.B.A., is the President and CEO of the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association.

Winn Davis is a policy specialist at The Alaska Native Health Board Inc.

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