• Alaska governor vetoes Denali KidCare expansion, By Dan Joling (AP), June 3, 2010, Anchorage Daily News: “Gov. Sean Parnell announced Thursday he will veto expansion of a health insurance program for low-income families because he recently found out the program pays for abortions. ‘I oppose expanding the government’s role in funding abortions,’ Parnell said at a news conference outlining vetoes to the operating and capital budgets. An estimated 18,000 children in Alaska, about 9 percent of the residents age 18 and under, are uninsured. The Alaska version of the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program, Denali KidCare, covers 7,900 Alaska children. Expansion would have added 1,277 more children and 225 pregnant women, according to state Sen. Betty Davis, the Anchorage Democrat who sponsored the bill…”
• Legislators reluctant to override governor’s KidCare funds veto, By Sean Cockerham, June 9, 2010, Anchorage Daily News: “Alaska Senate President Gary Stevens is polling the Senate to see if its members support going into special session and overriding Gov. Sean Parnell’s veto of money to expand Denali KidCare. But Stevens said he doesn’t think there’s enough support for a veto override and personally opposes having a special session. Stevens is taking the poll at the request of Anchorage Democratic Sen. Hollis French. French is a part of the bipartisan majority in the Senate and he’s also running against the Republican Parnell for governor in this year’s election. French and three other Democratic senators, Bettye Davis, Johnny Ellis and Bill Wielechowski, on Tuesday called on Parnell to change his mind about Denali KidCare and bring the Legislature into special session to override the veto. Parnell spokeswoman Sharon Leighow responded that is not going to happen…”

Increased Medicaid usage spikes cost, By Lisa Demer, March 7, 2010, Anchorage Daily News: “The single biggest item in the Alaska state budget is experiencing a costly growth spurt. It’s Medicaid — the state-federal insurance program for poor and low-income people. The cost is sure to top $1.2 billion this budget year and is expected to scale $1.3 billion the next. About 11,000 more children enrolled in the last 18 months. Doctors’ rates went up. And more people eligible for the program began to use it, perhaps out of anxiety over all the talk in Congress about national health care reform. A weakened state economy is at least partly to blame, a legislative consultant told lawmakers recently. The state unemployment rate is rising, and along with it, the numbers of Alaskans turning to food stamps and Medicaid, consultant Janet Clarke, a former top official in the state Department of Health and Social Services, told the House Finance Committee recently…”

Health reform could endanger CHIP funds, By Rosemary Shinohara, January 9, 2010, Anchorage Daily News: “In reshaping America’s health care, Congress may eliminate a major health insurance program for some U.S. children in families with incomes above the federal poverty level, but Alaska’s kids in the program likely won’t be affected. The prospect that Congress may ditch the Children’s Health Insurance Program has raised alarms nationally, with concerns about whether some children will lose insurance, and whether their families will be able to afford private insurance with new government subsidies that would be created…”

Alaska’s minimum wage increases 50 cents to $7.75, By Elizabeth Bluemink, January 11, 2010, Anchorage Daily News: “Thousands of Alaska’s lowest-paid workers are receiving a boost in their paychecks in the first couple weeks of this year. Due to a change in state law, the state’s minimum wage rose on Jan. 1 to $7.75 per hour. Minimum-wage earners working full time can expect a $1,040 hike in their annual salary — an additional $20 per week. That’s on top of the $4 per week increase they received in July to keep Alaska’s minimum wage even with the federal level. By the most conservative estimates, the wage hike is directly affecting more than 8,000 workers in Alaska, more than half of them adults, according to state officials. Most of them are employed at hotels and restaurants, but they also work in seafood processing, the arts, health care, construction and other jobs…”

• State’s poor being shifted to different medical plan, By Chen May Yee, November 10, 2009, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune: “The Pawlenty administration, which faced criticism for proposing to eliminate a state health-care program for the indigent, has decided to transfer most of those recipients to a subsidized insurance plan for the working poor. The General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) program for adults making less than $7,800 a year is scheduled to go away March 1, potentially leaving some 36,000 recipients — many with chronic illnesses and often homeless and mentally ill — without regular access to medical care. Now some 28,000 will be automatically enrolled in MinnesotaCare, a subsidized health insurance plan. The remainder are those whose GAMC eligibility is running out or who already are applying for MinnesotaCare…”
• More Alaska Medicaid kids may get braces, Associated Press, November 10, 2009, Fairbanks Daily News-Miner: “The state of Alaska must pay for braces on the teeth of foster children and young people on Medicaid who need them, a Superior Court judge ruled Monday. Judge William Morse issued an order in a lawsuit brought by an advocacy group for foster children called Facing Foster Care in Alaska. He granted a preliminary injunction against a state rule that limits braces to severe conditions such as cleft palate. The state argued that Facing Foster Care does not have the right to bring a lawsuit. Morse disagreed and ruled the state cannot use its own regulations to limit services that are required by federal code. The braces still have to be medically necessary - not just for the sake of appearance…”
• KidCare numbers drop; Medicaid kids rise, By Bill McCarthy, November 9, 2009, Wyoming Tribune Eagle: “The number of children on Wyoming Kid Care CHIP is declining, but the number of children on Medicaid is going up. Bob Peck, chief financial officer for the Wyoming Department of Health, said one explanation could be that parents are losing their jobs. Formerly working parents who had their children on the Kid Care program for child health insurance may be having to enroll their families directly into Medicaid, he said…”