Latest news with #GenevieveMina
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
State House asks Congress to prevent major health insurance cost hike for Alaskans
Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, speaks to the Alaska House of Representatives on Friday, April 25, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon) The Alaska House of Representatives has approved a formal letter asking Congress to extend a series of Affordable Care Act tax credits that are set to expire at the end of the year. Unless the credits are extended, Alaskans insured through the federal health insurance marketplace — about 25,000 people — could see their rates rise by an average of 67%. The House passed House Joint Resolution 9 by a vote of 26-14 on Monday. It is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Health and Social Services Committee on Tuesday. If approved by the Senate, the resolution would be sent to President Donald Trump and members of Alaska's congressional delegation, asking them to 'champion the extension of enhanced premium tax credits, prioritizing the health and economic stability of the state's residents by ensuring that affordable health care remains accessible to all.' Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, sponsored the resolution. 'We know that health care costs, as they will increase, would jeopardize small businesses and entrepreneurship. We are facing a tough fiscal situation. Enhanced premium tax credits make health care more affordable with no cost to the state,' she said, speaking Friday on the House floor. 'And if these subsidies expire, we'll see more people who are uninsured. We'll see more people go on to Medicaid, which will cost more for the state, and additionally we will see impacts to our economy and small businesses.' All 14 votes against the resolution came from members of the House's minority Republican caucus. Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, said that the resolution asks Congress to make COVID-era relief permanent, at a cost of more than $300 billion. 'When we ask for Congress to do things that increase our deficit, we are increasing inflation that harms Alaskans,' she said. 'When we are asking Congress to take measures that are going to increase the debt by billions of dollars, we're making things worse in the long term for Alaskans,' Vance said in opposition. Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks, is a member of the minority. He voted in support of the resolution but noted that he did so with reluctance. 'I struggle with this resolution because it's like a Band-Aid on an arterial bleed,' he said. 'It doesn't actually fix the problem of affordable insurance and quality health care. It's just funnelling a ton of money we take from people, into the pockets of insurance companies so they can charge people less money for insurance premiums, and I don't know if that model is sustainable.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Legislators try to thwart the will of Alaska voters on supporting labor — again
Former state labor commissioner Ed Flanagan, State Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, and the Rev. Michael Burke of St. Mary's Episcopal Church in Anchorage wheel boxes of signed petitions into a state Division of Elections office on Jan. 9, 2024. The petitions were for a ballot initiative to increase the state's minimum wage, mandate paid sick leave and ensure that workers are not required to hear employers' political or religious messages. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon) One of the most cynical things Alaska legislators ever did — and that's saying something — was vote to gut the 2002 minimum wage increase less than one year after passing it. After trying to supplant a voter initiative approved for the 2002 election with weaker measures, Republican majorities finally took the advice of their own attorneys — that they could only moot the initiative with a bill virtually identical to the ballot measure — and passed such a bill, which included an annual cost of living adjustment and a provision requiring that the Alaska minimum wage would always be at least one dollar over the federal minimum. Then-Speaker Pete Kott told the Daily News when the bill passed that it was preferable to letting the initiative pass since legislators wouldn't have to wait two years to change it. Less than a year later, they deleted the COLA and dollar-over-federal provisions. In 2014, an initiative to raise the state minimum wage to what it would have been had the 2002 law remained intact, and restore the COLA and dollar-over-federal provisions, was approved. Then-Speaker Mike Chenault, who had voted for both the 2002 law and the 2003 bill gutting it, tried to pull off the same cynical maneuver. Chenault's bill passed by one vote in the House, but Senate Republicans, to their credit, refused to play along and the initiative passed with a 70% vote. Now Rep. Justin Ruffridge has reached into the old bag of tricks to try and gut the recently passed Ballot Measure 1 — approved with a 58% vote in November — before it even takes effect on July 1. Their HB 161 would exempt employers of less than 50 employees, and all seasonal employers, from the paid sick leave provisions of Ballot Measure 1. Under Alaska law, the Legislature can not repeal an initiative until two years after its adoption. An initiative can be amended prior to two years, but the Alaska Supreme Court found in 1977 in Warren v. Thomas that the Legislature would exceed its power to amend 'by passing an amendment which so vitiates the initiative as to constitute its repeal.' According to the Research and Analysis Section of the Alaska Department of Labor, 96% of Alaska's private sector employers — the only employers subject to Ballot Measure 1 — employ fewer than 50 workers, and 43% of all private-sector workers in the state are employed by these employers. The broad exemption for seasonal employers, regardless of size, would only increase the vitiating effect of HB 161 on the initiative and the clear intent expressed by the voters in passing it overwhelmingly. Ballot Measure 1 was supported by a coalition of over 130 Alaska small businesses, employers who recognized the importance of providing a modest amount of paid sick leave to workers, for their well-being and productivity — and for the economic and physical health of our communities. No parent should have to decide between going to work or caring for a sick child. Nor should they be forced to choose between losing a day's pay or going to work sick and spreading illness to co-workers or customers. We should protect our ability to enact needed legislation through initiatives, where the people themselves act as the Legislature. Seventeen states have paid sick leave laws, and none of the hysterical predictions of negative effects on their businesses or employment have come to pass. Alaska used to be a leader in providing meaningful worker rights and protection. Let's at least be a follower now and afford our workers the same basic benefits enjoyed by millions of Americans in other states. We should protect our ability to enact needed legislation through initiatives, where the people themselves act as the Legislature. Our elected legislators should respect that process, but all too often, as in the case of HB 161, they do not. We need to let them know that we didn't elect them to thwart the will of the people, and that HB 161 is tantamount to a repeal of Ballot Measure 1 and should not pass. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Alaska legislators predict dire effects if Congress cuts Medicaid funding
Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage, speaks in favor of a budget amendment on Thursday, April 6, 2023, in the Alaska House of Representatives. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon) A budget resolution passed late Tuesday by the U.S. House of Representatives is sparking concern in Alaska, worrying state legislators who say it will lead to steep state budget deficits and tens of thousands of Alaskans without health care. 'That vote is insane,' said Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage. The House's resolution is the first step toward a budget plan that calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion less in federal spending over a decade. Alaska Congressman Nick Begich III joined fellow Republicans in support of the resolution, which passed 217-215. Within the resolution is a directive that the House Committee on Energy and Commerce cut $880 billion over 10 years from the section of the federal budget it oversees. That section includes Medicare, Medicaid, and some smaller programs. But as a New York Times analysis showed, even if the committee were to cut everything that isn't health care in its section, it would still be more than $600 billion short of its goal. 'The only place those cuts can come is from Medicaid,' said Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage. Medicaid, a joint federal-state program, is the primary form of health coverage for lower-income Americans and the largest payment source for long-term nursing care The resolution is only the first step in the budget process — the Senate will need to agree with the resolution, then Congress will have to draft and pass legislation to implement it — but the sheer size of the cuts make it all but certain that Medicaid and Medicare will be affected if the resolution advances in its present form. That's a big deal for Alaska, where one-third of all residents receive health care through Medicaid. Medicaid payments fund hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, and 12% of all jobs in the state are related to health care. 'Seven in nine Alaskan seniors in our nursing homes are on Medicaid. Medicaid helps seniors and disabilities live independently, and it also strengthens our tribal health system and ensures that there's health care access in rural Alaska,' said Rep. Genevieve Mina, D-Anchorage and chair of the House Health and Social Services Committee. Alaska is spending $2.8 billion per year on Medicaid, according to the budget enacted last spring by the Legislature and Gov. Mike Dunleavy. About $2.1 billion of that total is paid for by the federal government, and the state contributes about $730 million. Speaking on the Senate floor, Giessel — a licensed nurse — advised her colleagues to pay attention. 'We need to be aware of this as we consider our budgets,' she said. Mina, speaking on the House floor, said, 'these current cuts risk creating an at least $115 million hole in our state budget.' Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, suggested that the state could lose $1.15 billion in federal funding, 'and that as many as 60,000 Alaskans — and I suspect more — would fall off the rolls.' 'So I have a request — and that is to our senators, because our congressman has already begun the process of adopting this policy — and my request to our U.S. senators is, don't forget Alaska. Don't forget Alaska,' Josephson said. Earlier this month, Begich spoke to the Legislature in support of work requirements for federal aid. This week, Mina said that if the congressional budget proposal includes those requirements, the state should be prepared to spend more in order to implement those requirements. She predicted dire consequences if Congress goes forward with the planned cuts. 'We are going to be hearing a lot from seniors and from people with disabilities and from a lot of working people who rely on Medicaid. And it is not an exaggeration to say that these cuts would cut a lot of people and push them into medical bankruptcy,' Mina said. 'It will worsen our health care options drastically. It will really destroy our own state budget, and it will cause a collapse in our health care system.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
