The 2025 session in Juneau was a tough one for state legislators. There was little money for new initiatives, a disappointment for freshmen lawmakers who wanted to make their mark. Next year may be just as bad, members of the House and Senate finance committees warn.
There’s a silver lining here: When there’s little money, legislators can turn their attention to important policy changes that don’t often get enough attention.
This year, for example, there was significant progress in health care. And more attention was paid to housing, which is at a crisis point in almost all Alaska communities.
Education
But the high point of the session was the Legislature’s override of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of a bill increasing education funding. A surprising number of even conservative Republicans joined Democrats and independent lawmakers to reject the governor’s action.
The 46 of 60 votes rejecting the veto of House Bill 57 are also enough to override a line-item veto in the budget of new money for schools the Legislature approved. There’s no guarantee that will happen, and Dunleavy hasn’t said he will veto the money. Best to be prepared, though.
This is important because most legislators now reject the argument that schools should improve their academic performance before getting any new money. We may have turned the corner on this divisive issue. It’s tough for children to perform better when the roof is leaking.
Health care
Health care and its costs didn’t get a lot of public attention, but progress is being made in the Legislature, and it will continue. Most important is the passage of a bill, Senate Bill 133, that sets timelines for insurance companies to decide on authorization for payment for medical procedures. Delays on these decisions by some insurers have been a significant problem for health care providers and for patients anxious about their treatments.
A bill doing this failed in the 2024 session when insurance companies objected, but later in the year health providers, insurers and the state Division of Insurance negotiated a compromise that resulted in passage of SB 133 this spring. This is a win-win. The Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, chaired by Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Soldotna, sponsored the bill.
Another health insurance fight looms for 2026, however. It will be on legislation to set minimum payments required of insurance companies on medical bills and to require insurers to establish networks of preferred health providers large enough to give patients real choices.
The minimum payment bill, introduced but not passed this year, is likely to be controversial. Years ago, there were abuses when insurance companies based their reimbursements, or payments, on the prevailing charges for procedures, which were often based on costs in states like Mississippi, where costs are lower compared to those in Alaska.
The Legislature stepped in to curtail this by establishing a rule requiring payment at the 80th percentile of rates in Alaska for a given procedure. Technical problems developed and the rule was repealed and has not yet been replaced.
The state insurance division is working on that, but this is a complex area. To avoid mistakes, the Division of Insurance will have an expert consultant report available. Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel proposes to speed the process with her Senate Bill 121, which links reimbursements to a multiplier in a Medicare index for payments.
This is important because anecdotal information is that insurers’ reimbursements, which raise patients’ costs, are now trending down again, though hopefully not back to Mississippi levels.
There’s always another side to things, of course. Insurance companies are wary of unscrupulous players gaming the health care payment system, and we should be too. Fraud adds to costs not only for insurers but, in the end, consumers.
Housing
On housing, bills that could improve things are advancing in both the House and Senate. House Bill 13, by Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, would allow municipalities to do targeted property tax breaks to stimulate housing. HB 13 is in the House Community and Regional Affairs Committee.
Senate Bill 14, by Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, encouraging the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, or AIDEA, to do multi-family housing financing, is now in the Senate Finance Committee. A similar House bill, HB 184 by Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau is in the House Rules Committee.
The state’s Alaska Housing Finance Corp. also does this, but AIDEA, the state development finance corporation, would supplement AHFC, filling gaps.
Dropped balls
All this is good, but legislators deserve scolding for dropping the ball in a few places. One is a workforce development bill sponsored by Gov. Mike Dunleavy that would allow people coming to Alaska with professional licenses from other states to have their licenses recognized in Alaska provided they are in good standing.
This is a sensible and obvious good thing to do, and most states do it in various ways. It would expand the pool of working professionals in Alaska. The bill, HB 158, went to the House Special Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs in March and emerged two months later, in late May. It is now in the House Labor and Commerce Committee. This is a very leisurely pace given the urgency of reinforcing our workforce.
Other worthy governor’s bills that seem on the slow track are HB 60 and SB 67, which expand a procurement preference for Alaska agricultural and seafood products. HB 60 has been in the House Labor and Commerce Committee since February. Senate Bill 67 has been in the Senate Resources Committee since January.
Everyone agrees Alaska needs to be more secure in its food supply, and these bills would add new incentives for that. We hope tension between the Legislature and the governor isn’t slowing these bills. Politics shouldn’t get in the way of good ideas.
Tim Bradner is publisher of the Alaska Legislative Digest and a regular contributor to the Daily News.
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