Murkowski's Alaska Gold Rush Loses Some Gold Plating [View all]

[justaprogressive]

The pork-barrel deal with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was enough to get her to vote for the motion to proceed to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) late last night, which passed by a count of 51-49. But the deal lost a lot of its luster this morning, when the Senate parliamentarian ruled several provisions out of order.

That gives Murkowski, whose state could see more rollbacks when the parliamentarian rules on various food assistance provisions, a choice to make. She could honor a deal that is evaporating by the minute, or she could turn against the bill, which as written would devastate millions of Americans, including those in her home state. And by the time amendments are voted upon, Alaska could see dramatically worse federal payments for Medicaid in particular.

The parliamentarian ruled that the boost to the federal share of Medicaid for certain “high-poverty” states, which happened to be Alaska and Hawaii, did not comport with the Byrd rule, which requires everything to have a primarily budgetary purpose. That would have increased Alaska’s federal share by 25 percent. In addition, a boost to health care reimbursement payments for Alaska and Hawaii for hospital outpatient services was also tossed. Hawaii, the other noncontiguous state, was added to these so Senate Republicans could make the case that they were not singling out Alaska; that gambit did not work.

This potentially interacts with an upcoming amendment vote to completely reverse Alaska’s Medicaid situation. In addition to Murkowski, deficit hawk Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Rick Scott (R-FL), Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) were holdouts on the motion to proceed last night. As a condition of their support, they got a guarantee for an amendment in the “vote-a-rama” phase that would phase out the Medicaid expansion, a key part of Obamacare.

https://prospect.org/politics/2025-06-29-murkowski-alaska-gold-rush-loses-plating-medicaid/