Alaska will reluctantly implement health care reform, while trying to shift costs to the federal government, Gov. Sean Parnell said Thursday following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision upholding most of the provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Parnell said the state may resist implementing parts of the legislation where that’s legal and an option for the state.
“We may have lost the battle, but we are not going to stop fighting,” he said.
Alaska had been one of 26 states suing to block implementation of the law, and Parnell made clear he is still philosophically opposed to it.
“When it comes to individual freedoms, and the individual mandate, we may have lost the battle but we are not going to stop fighting,” he said.
The key provision upheld by the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision was the requirement that everyone has health care coverage, or pay a tax penalty if the don’t.
Parnell made clear his opposition to the bill that critics call “Obamacare” but the Republican governor shied away from personalizing his criticisms as many of the law’s harshest critics have done.
In a written statement about the ruling Obama was not mentioned at all, and speaking at a press conference in Anchorage Thursday, Parnell only once used the term “Obamacare” while continuing to criticize the Affordable Care Act.
“This federal health care legislation will be implemented,” Parnell said. “The supreme Court deemed it constitutional, this was a political choice by the people’s political representatives in Washington that made it so,” he said.
Now that the court had upheld the Affordable Care Act, Parnell said it would be up to political leaders in Washington to change it.
Parnell said that he had not yet talked with legislative leaders about how the state should respond. The legislature includes some harsh critics of the Affordable Care Act, as well as President Obama, but they were unable to pass legislation in opposition in the last session.
The Legislature was quick to show its opposition, introducing House Bill 1 in 2011 at the start of the two-year session aimed at blocking its implementation in Alaska.
That bill, prepared by the conservative lobbying group American Legislative Exchange Council, would have tried to block the requirement for health care coverage in Alaska. It took until nearly the end of the 2102 session to pass the House and died in the Senate.
Its House passage was on a nearly party-line 24-16 vote, though Rep. Cathy Munoz, R-Juneau, crossed party lines to join Rep. Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau, and most Democrats in voting against it.
Kerttula Thursday welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision, and urged Parnell to help Alaskans get health care by implementing the act.
“I like freedom, what I don’t like is seeing people losing their homes and losing their lives because they can’t meet their child’s medical bills,” she said.
Parts of the heath care law that have already been implemented have boosted coverage for young people, prohibiting exclusions for pre-existing conditions for children and extending dependent coverage to age 26.
Sen. Hollis French, D-Anchorage, said that while he didn’t know whether the Legislature would adopt optional parts of the health care law, he doubted there would be continued attempts to confront it directly.
“At this point the legislative process has played itself out,” he said.
Reaction from the state’s congressional delegation split along party lines, as did the original votes on the Affordable Care Act.
“While the law is not perfect, the status quo was not an option,” said Democratic Sen. Mark Begich.
“Health care costs were skyrocketing and insurance companies were in charge of escalating those costs. There is still plenty of work to do, and I look forward to the State of Alaska moving forward on implementation,” he said.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who sometimes crosses party lines, called the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the act “A new precedent in governmental overreach.”
Republican Rep. Don Young, who had already voted in the House to repeal the Affordable Care Act, said he remained in opposition.
“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court does not change the fact that ObamaCare sticks the American people with new taxes, new regulations and devastating cuts to Medicare,” he said.
Parnell said Thursday that while his administration was still reviewing the 193-page ruling, an exercise expected to take weeks, his goal would be to implement the act at the lowest cost to the state.
“I will work to shift back to the federal government those costs it is imposing on our citizens,” he said.
The federal government included money for the states to implement parts of the health care law, money that Alaska has in some cases rejected fearing it would come with burden
Parnell said he didn’t know whether the state would begin accepting that money, but those decisions would have to be made later on a case-by-case basis.
One victory for opponents of the health care law was the Supreme Court’s decision that the federal government could not threaten state’s with loss of all their Medicaid funding if the refuse to expand the program in their states.
Parnell said Alaska might now reject the extra federal money, which funds the expansion at 100 percent for the first 3 years, but only 90 percent after that.
“With no penalty we need to rethink what we’re going to do with Medicaid and the requirements that have been imposed by the act,” he said.
• Contact reporter Pat Forgey at 523-2250 or patrick.forgey@juneauempire.com
Comments (57)
Add commentSeveral lessons to be learned here
1)If you don't like the mandate(and a lot of ACA supporters don't like the fact that the insurance-industrial complex made Obama put it in there either), then support Congressional and especially U.S. Senate candidates who'd back the "public option" or perhaps even single-payer. The polls have always shown the majority of Americans WANT single-payer-therefore, we should have it, since(unlike other things the majority has wanted at times)it wouldn't harm anyone.
2) It's never a good day for the Tea Party when they can't even get Chief Justice Roberts to agree. At this rate, they'll turn Antonin Scalia into a supporter of the capital gains tax.
3) Sean Parnell is willing to put the lives of Alaskans, including people in "traditional families"(many of whom are struggling under market values as much as anyone else is)at risk in the name of playing political games and advancing his "profile"(and, of course, serving the corporados and banksters that fund his political existence). Not worth your time, 'Lil Seanie...nobody's gonna put another Alaskan governor on a presidential ticket again in our lifetimes-and last time you challenged a real candidate in our state(in the GOP congressional primary a few years ago)you blew a 20 point lead. You haven't got any irons in the fire that are hot enough to justify causing innocent Alaskans to die.
Medicare for all!
This could have been so much simpler, if Congress had just voted to make Medicare accessible to all.
Obamacare is not perfect, but it's a start in the right direction. I'd rather have inferior or rationed health care as opposed to no health care, or health care which bankrupts me after one illness and makes me homeless. THIS is what is in place now for 45 million Americans!
And 45 million Americans, including many of my friends and family, have no access to health care. Go see a Doctor? It costs $200 just for the office visit. Middle classers can't afford that more than once or twice.
The biggest atrocity of all, is that we are the wealthiest nation on the planet, yet tens of millions of us have no real access to affordable health care.
And I echo PP's statement. ACA will have little or no effect on most of us.
As such, I hope it is gutted, and REAL healthcare reform takes it's place; like Medicare for all.
And I'd be MORE than happy to pay more in taxes to make it happen. I believing in paying taxes for things that benefit me personally, as well as society as a whole, instead of things that just benefit me personally.
The interesting thing is the
The interesting thing is the WH today is still claiming that the mandate is not a tax but a penalty. If it’s not a tax, then it’s unconstitutional. Pick one – Tax or Unconstitutional.
@Milspec
8 of the 9 Justices did not think the tax penalty for being able to afford health and not purchasing it is a tax. 4 thought that made it constitutional, 4 not.
Only Chief Justice Roberts thought it a tax, and thus constitutional.
Confused? Me too. Especially since in the late 1700's the early US Congress passed a law that mandated "That each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective states" ... "shall, within six months thereafter, provide himself with a good musket or firelock, a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare flints, and a knapsack, a pouch with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or firelock, each cartridge to contain a proper quantity of powder and ball: or with a good rifle, knapsack, shot-pouch and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle, and a quarter of a pound of powder;..." that is what our Founding Father's thought of the constitionality of mandating a private purchase for the common good.
The gun mandate: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Statutes_at_Large/Volume_1/2... .
Overreaching?
This time the government's alligator mouth has overloaded their canary a s s ! Even the SCOTUS has overreached it's power to make this POS fly. Just how efficient do they think the government is that they can enforce a document they can't even read? Nothing short of Marshal Law will serve to push this. And, believe you me... Marshal Law will never fly in the Land of the Free. Go ahead... Make my day!
That wasn't an Obama supporter holding up that sign
And most increases in health care costs are due to the lack of price controls and the insistence of health care providers on spending massive amounts of money NOT on taking care of the sick and injured(the only things they're SUPPOSED to be spending money on)but on advertising.
It's greed that drives healthcare prices up...not "poor life choices".
Stop blaming innocent ordinary people for the poor choices of corporations. You should never be fighting FOR the corporations...after all, they never show any loyalty to you.
J.E. Fume: Yes, it is a win.
But the Mariners are playing a game. They will play another next, and next, and next. It is a sport. I do not place the game in the same league.
Jo: Why should it cost me $200 to walk into the doc's office?
Follow the logic...the grocer has a checker employed. That will be $200 please. I can understand medical costs...but the office visit is over and above anything the physician is doing. It has simply been established for walking in the door. Even lawyers need to account for the minutes. (And the waiting time is considerably less.)
all about you
Jo Mc, your last statement says it all, it is about all you.
Kenb41: Let us just eliminate the corporation.
Exactly what would you replace them with?
Ken Dunker...I'd put in a few alternatives...
1)large cooperative ventures...in which ordinary people could get shares and votes in the decision-making process at a low cost(and whose charters would incorporate social and environmental values as well as a commitment to base the enterprise on producing a good product and/or service at a decent price, rather than basing the whole thing solely on short-term rate of return for the shareholders even if that return is achieved by asset-stripping). These might start with some sort of state subsidy but would NOT be state-owned or bureaucratically-managed. We could do this, for example, in the soon-to-be-former A&P space.
2)Small employee-owned and managed companies, especially in small towns. These would also have social/environmental/labor values in their charters, and there are a lot of practical examples of employee ownership and management keeping alive enterprizes that would have died out and left people jobless if left solely to "the magic of the market".
3)A handful of state-owned firms in fields that are naturally monopolistic, such as resource extraction companies(I'd do this with the Alaska oil and mining industry, for example), energy utilities, and healthcare(health coverage, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturing and development). All of these are concerns in which competition isn't really a factor and doesn't really benefit the consumer. These would be employee-managed and consumers would get shares in them and votes to help make at least some management decisions through their purchases of the goods and services provided by these concerns.
I'm open to other ideas as well.
I agree that the old "state socialist" model didn't work as well as it could have(it wasn't managed democratically enough, being run simply as a less-effecient version of the way those enterprises were run under old-style capitalism)
But our present system, while appearing to be "efficient"(it isn't always, actually, but that's another discussion) and while providing us with a large amount of basically meaningless "consumer choice"(really, do we NEED thirty different kinds of vanilla ice cream to pick from?), is geared towards acting in ways that are often cruel and insensitive to consumers, and is treating working people(most of us)with greater coldness, while putting more and more of us out of work at at least random intervals simply because doing so gives some shareholders a short-term financial dividend.
We have the ability to come together and create something better than that...something that honors, empowers, and values workers and consumers(as opposed to just owners and shareholders)that treats all of us with dignity(not just the few)and that doesn't treat those who aren't wealthy and dominant as pawns to be used and cast away.
Why not try to come up with something else? Why settle for the ugliness we have now? This clearly can't be the only way to run things, or the only way to live.
Watch out Lisa
You were elected as an independent, don't let your real Republican roots show too much.
Ken,George Bush only won the
Ken,
George Bush only won the 2000 election by three electoral votes--after having lost the popular vote. It was still a win. How's that for an example? A win is still a win. He crowed on about the mandate he had received from the American people. It was a win by the narrowest of margins. But, for all intents and purposes, it had the some impact as Nixon's landslide win in 1972.
I know you didn't like the outcome of the recent Supreme Court decision on health care. You and the rest of the right-wingers on here can complain about it until the sun rises in the West. It's not going to change things. Sorry, the good guys won this one.
Why is Parnell waiting?
Why is Parnell waiting?
Because he's an idiot, ideologue, and hypocrite. He's been fighting against lower cost healthcare since he got into office. For someone who portrays themself as a bleeding heart for the poor and downtrodden, pretty hypocritical.
He needed to study the issue? The bill passed two years ago. What have he and his crew of yes men been doing the past two years? He makes Palin look like an intellectual by comparison.
this is truly harmful legislation
1. This disaster will cut $575 BILLION from medicare to "pay for itself". How is that going to work? We have devastating shortages in specialist physicians and even family practice physicians who will accept medicare now. PAs and NPs are well meaning but their education is a tiny fraction of a board certified specialist. Down south, most specialists won't even accept a referral from a PA or NP already.
Cut medicare drastically and what will happen? Even less people willing to pay for the yearsof education and supervised training it takes to be a quality physician. Areas with large populations of medicare recipients will be facing hospital closures under this new disaster.
A loss for every American, in almost every way.
2. Force those who can least afford to use health insurance to subsidize those who aren't paying their own bills and failing to support their own children. These are young workers who wouldn't see a doctor more than once every few years. It would be far cheaper for them to pay for their visits out of packet than to subsidize people who fail to support themselves or their kids.
Unless you are a Native American or Alaska Native tribal member, Amish, Muslim or Scientologist. Scientology just got a whole lot better looking to millions of Americans.
3. Still ZERO measures on stopping fraud and abuse. Nothing to require recipients of handouts to comply with doctor recommendations. Just keep smoking, eating garbage, sitting on the couch and driving everywhere. Working people will subsidize you no matter how badly you try to kill yourself or how long it takes. In AK it includes free shopping trips galore too!
3. So hated by so many people this narrow decision raised over $4.5 million in less than one day for a candidate who promised to abolish this disaster.
"legislating from the bench"
Another reason I laugh at conservatives...
When courts vote the way that pleases conservatives, they scream, "Democracy worked! This is a victory for freedom!"
And when courts rule the other way, they immediately scream, "Activist judges! Legislating from the bench!"
But what they fail to see in this instance, is that one of their own (Roberts) voted with the majority!
Hypocrites.
@Julian: Re-read my last comment above. It wasn't about me, it was about benefitting society as a whole, as well as me. nice try.
PP
Yea PP, the Constitution was thrown under the bus. This is what can be taxed according to the Constitution. I guess our Supreme Court cannot read!
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
Corruption at its best:
prior to 1936, the General Welfare Clause was not considered an independent grant of power, but instead a qualification on the taxing power which included within it a power to spend tax revenues in the interest of the general welfare.In recent decades, the Court conferred upon Congress a plenary power to impose taxes and to spend money for the general welfare subject almost entirely to its own discretion, including the power to indirectly coerce the states into adopting national standards by threatening to withhold federal funds.
The reality is the Constitution actually states what taxes can be used for. This has been neglected. Now, we've opened the door for the federal government to force the purchase any product or service. Sure, it might all be for good intentions, but every time we give the federal government a power it is abused.
Thank you US Supreme Court for proving that the US Constitution does not exist. Calling health care tax, making a clearly unconstitutional decision using the Supremacy Clause with regard to immigration.
PP, just because the US Supreme Court has proven it cannot read basic 6th grade grammar doesn't change the English language.
@WREN
Since when do you know more than a Supreme Court justice? If you know so much why are you not sitting on the highest court in the land instead of commenting from Juneau Alaska?
I'd have a little more respect for those who "down-thumbed"
my alternatives to corporate control of everything(the path we're now on) if they'd actually at least try to post a coherent argument against what I suggested.
You guys would actually have to have such an argument to down-thumb my post. Just down-thumbing is the same as shouting "you suck!" and doesn't impress anybody.
New approach
Lets see... let's say my employer spends 10,000 per employee per year on health insurance... why not give me a raise in that amount and allow me to buy the policy of my choosing on the exchange? That way I get to keep my insurance as it is not tied to my job. The employer that pays best wins the employee. Seems a simple way to stop the new law from becoming such a burden on business that will force the end of the world.
It isn't big business that will pay for this
as some seem to think here. It's small businesses and even worse; young workers who can't afford and have no need to use the health insurance they will be forced to buy in order to supplement people who currently don't support themselves or their families.
It will also be paid for by seniors with the $500billion+ that will be cut from their services...for about 5 minutes until the first people start dying and money we don't have is voted back in.
Increasing insurance choices means nothing when the people being forced to buy the insurance can't afford to use it and have no need to use it.
Dramatically expanding programs filled with abuse and waste without addressing those issues will be more financially devastating to this country than any 3 things we've seen previously combined.
young workers HAVE NO NEED for health insurance?
Does that include emancipated minors?
Does that mean young people who are working to help support a family where one of their parents is absent, disabled or dead?
Does that include young "traditional values" people who've married early and are already raising a family?
Does that include young people who work in dangerous workplaces where injuries and exposure to deadly chemicals are a common occurrence?
Young workers are somehow immune from physical suffering simply because they ARE young?
News flash most young people are NOT the cheerleader from HEROES. In fact, none of them are(since that cheerleader only existed on television).
@ curtis, "How would he know
@ curtis, "How would he know it wasn't perfect? Did he even read it before he voted for it? Why is he against tort reform? Why is he against purchasing insurance across state lines? Why is he in office?"
We all know it's not perfect. Not much is. How can you support no change when, as the senator pointed out, the status quo is not an option? How can we, as a world super power, be the last industrialized nation without universal healthcare?
Why is a senator in support of this most fundamental human right considered a failure?
Purchasing insurance across state lines is an interesting topic, although I don't understand how one expects that to lower insurance premiums. You pay for what you get. If you want less, you pay less. Doesn't mean you get a better deal. Employers could essentially purchase bare-bones insurance for their employees and no one could object.
And tort reform?!?! I am starting to believe coporations are people and they actually post on blogs. I am referring to you, in case you missed that. If you want tort reform, then you also want to take away any incentive for corporations to behave ethically. Limit corporate liability? WHY!?!?! Why would you give a pass to multi-billion dollar organizations and support legislation that would ulitmately strip what little power we as individuals hold? WHY!?!?!?! This is directly against YOUR best interest as an American citizen. How can you support this?