Healthcare cuts threaten Sullivan's reelection chances in Alaska
Alaskans have been hit hard by the healthcare cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and lapsed ObamaCare subsidies, presenting a prime target for
A Democratic ad campaign released late last month accused Sullivan of voting to raise health insurance premiums in
When former Alaska Rep.
Sullivan appears well aware of his vulnerability on the issue.
In the past month, he has broken with the
Sullivan was also among four
"Given how many times he has voted for legislation or amendments that would either reduce healthcare subsidies for Alaskans or otherwise increase healthcare costs, the damage has largely been done,"
"It's one thing to vote on your principles. It's another thing to follow the party line until you feel like you're in danger and then try to cover your tracks," he said.
Heckendorn added that healthcare was "absolutely" an issue that could sway Alaskan voters.
"We have some of the highest healthcare costs in the country, and our marketplace has, I believe, some of the most expensive premiums. And there's some studies that show that healthcare costs for Alaskans have increased by over
At the beginning of the year, initial figures indicated about 3,000 Alaskans had dropped out of the ACA marketplace after the subsidies expired, representing an 11 percent decrease that's expected to rise as enrollees struggle to keep up with higher premiums.
"
"It also has trickle-down effects for the broader economy," Collins added. "On the healthcare side, all of this supports healthcare in
In the
When reached for comment about his recent votes, Sullivan's office said the senator had a "track record of voting with colleagues on both sides of the aisle when it's good for
"One of
"While he remains a vocal critic of Democrat one-size-fits-all federal policies that have historically crashed
While most election forecasters still favor Sullivan to prevail in November, Peltola outraised him in the first quarter and is beating him in recent polls — by nearly 7 percentage points in a late April poll by
Sullivan has argued that some of his other efforts to protect healthcare for Alaskans have been defeated by
While
"The biggest sort of defining factor in really understanding the economics of healthcare there is it's a really, really big state, but it's also highly dispersed in terms of its population,"
These logistical hurdles make recruiting and retaining healthcare providers more difficult. The state also has a very concentrated health insurance market, with
"So, all of that kind of combines up into creating an environment where costs are somewhat higher and access to care can be more of a challenge than in some of the more highly concentrated population states," Leitz added.
Leitz noted that
"Changes that occur at the federal level can have a somewhat larger impact in the state, depending on what the changes are, just because of that weird diversity that the state has in terms of its payers," he said.
Six months out from
"Alaskans can't get the dollars back in their wallets that they've had to spend on inflated healthcare costs as a result of his votes," he said. "All that damage is done, but now he's kind of admitting that those votes were never about principle in the first place."



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