Health4all : What AK Legislators Think About Health Care Issues

Health4all

Every year more Alaskan families lose health insurance and can't afford health care. Every year more families with health insurance cannot afford to use it because of expensive out-of-pocket charges. Every year more Alaskan elders with Medicare are refused treatment by local physicians. And every year health care in Alaska continues to cost 30 percent more than down south. These problems are a reflection of the crisis across the nation. Not surprisingly, the United States ranks last in preventable deaths compared to 14 Western European nations. We have a lot to talk about.

Lawrence D. Weiss retired from UAA in 2004 as a research professor in public health. He designed and built the Master of Public Health program at UAA, and has published three books and numerous articles on public health and health policy issues. He completed a post-doctoral degree at Harvard School of Public Health in 1982, and has been in Alaska ever since. His favorite expression is "facts matter." Occasionally he can be found in a local pub drinking beer and eating pizza while engaged in passionate conversation with friends.

What AK Legislators Think About Health Care Issues

Posted by health4all

Posted: November 4, 2008 - 2:01 pm

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Alaska Primary Care Association & Alaska Public Health Association Candidate Survey

With an election just around the corner [actually, today!], the APCA has just finalized the results of the 2008 candidate survey. This year the APCA worked together with the Alaska Public Health Association (ALPHA) to create a comprehensive healthcare survey which was distributed to 98 candidates after the August Primary Election. The survey asked each candidate 10 important health care questions and asked candidates to determine a level of support based on a six point scale. Five questions were based on state funding support issues such as increasing funding for Denali KidCare and providing funding for a health professional loan repayment program. The remaining five questions focused on particular legislation such as expanding the scope of practice for health care professionals and expanding access to health coverage for all Alaskans.

Several interesting observation when analyzing the survey results include that the Democrats ranked access to affordable health care and increasing income limits so that more children are eligible for Denali KidCare as the top priorities, while these two were the lowest priorities for Republicans. It is also interesting to note that funding health promotion and prevention programs to decrease disease rates were high priorities for both Democrats and Republicans.

You can find the survey results here.

The survey questions can be found here.

The survey results include both state and federal candidates and total 37 responses. Candidates were mailed the survey in late August with a deadline to return the survey by September 26. In order to urge candidates to complete and return the survey to APCA by the September 26 deadline, APCA staff made personal calls to each candidate and let them know that they still have an opportunity to return the completed surveys and if they choose not to do the survey a no response provided would follow their name when the survey results were distributed to the public.

The results of the survey can be found on the APCA website, www.alaskapca.org and will also be distributed to the ALPHA membership. Please contact Regan@alaskapca.org if you have any questions.

[Source: Alaska Primary Care Association website]

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