Alaska’s U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Friday that a Democrat-backed proposal to extend health care subsidies used by thousands of Alaskans would likely falter in the Senate next week, but that she is committed to finding a way to ensure the tax credits do not go away at the end of the year.
The tax subsidies, known as the enhanced premium tax credits, are used by most of the roughly 25,000 Alaskans who purchase insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
The tax credits, which were implemented with backing from congressional Democrats in 2022, are set to expire at the end of the month without further action from Congress. That would cause the cost of health insurance premiums to double or triple for some Alaskans, going up in some cases by thousands of dollars per month.
Murkowski and Alaska’s U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, both Republicans who did not initially support the subsidies when they were implemented, have recently said that they support a temporary extension of the tax credits for a period of two years, as long as the extensions are tied with some reforms that could reduce their cost for the federal government.
But a proposal unveiled by congressional Democrats this week would extend the subsidies for three years with no reforms.
Under a deal reached with some Democrats last month to end the government shutdown, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, promised that the Senate would vote on Democrats’ proposal.
Speaking to reporters in Anchorage on Friday, Murkowski said that she did not think that Democrats’ proposal would gain the 60 votes needed to pass in the Senate. A competing Republican proposal to extend the subsidies while tying them to some reforms had not been fully drafted yet, Murkowski said.
“Every time I’ve mentioned the extension, I’ve also acknowledged that we’re going to have to do some level of reforms for the subsidy program itself,” said Murkowski.
Among the reform ideas that Murkowski said can garner bipartisan support is an income cap for those receiving the subsidies. Such a cap could prohibit those making $350,000 from taking advantage of the credits, while allowing families earning $100,000 to use them, she said as an example.
Health premium costs are driven by the age of the enrollees and the size of their families; in Anchorage, one business owner recently said that without tax credits, her family of three could be expected to pay roughly $50,000 annually in premiums.
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“I don’t want to have to vote for a straight extension without any reforms, but if I’m in a situation where it a straight extension with no reforms, or nothing, I don’t know what I tell people who are absolutely panicked that they’re going to be looking at a $30,000 price hike for their insurance,” Murkowski said.
“I want to try to get us to a 60-vote measure that we can actually pass into law,” she added.
Murkowski said that extending the subsidies would require compromise between Republicans and Democrats.
“Here’s what I’m anticipating this week: The Democrats will ask for a vote on their three-year straight extension. It will not get 60 votes. The Republicans are going to lay down some alternatives. It is not yet defined what that is. The fact that we are literally less than a week out, and we don’t know what the Republican alternative is, doesn’t bode very well for its political success,” said Murkowski. “Towards the end of the week, you’re going to have to have two failures. That’s not going to help the Alaskan family that is looking at this extraordinary spike.”
“Once we demonstrate what we can’t do, we’ve got to fix it,” she said.
One of the salient questions lawmakers will have to address is the length of extension for the tax credits, Murkowski said.
Extending them by just a single year would “put this decision into the thick of the politics of elections next year, so nobody was interested in one year,” she said. “Two years seemed to be something where there was a lot of common ground. There are some who say, well, let’s do three years so that it gets on the other side of the full Trump administration. So there’s some in the administration that kind of like that idea, because they don’t want to have to reckon with this again.”
President Donald Trump has not publicly backed an extension of the tax credits, though the White House indicated an openness to extending the subsidies.
The other salient question is the matter of reforms.
“The challenge that we have with the Democrats’ proposal is that it is a straight extension, no reforms at all. If you could give me a three-year extension with a path for reforms, I think we can make this work,” said Murkowski.
Murkowski said that in addition to a short-term extension to the subsidies, she wanted to address “the broader challenge, which is, how do we reduce the cost of overall care.” That could include expanding the federal government’s ability to negotiate down the price of prescription drugs, she said.
Jim Grazko, president of Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, said in an email last month that between 25% and 30% of premiums paid in the state are driven by high prescription drug costs.
Concerns over Trump actions
In her Friday press availability, held after a holiday luncheon in Anchorage, Murkowski also addressed recent concerns over a Sept. 2 strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean that killed two survivors of an earlier strike.
Murkowski said that the federal government “absolutely” has the authority to intercept drugs coming into the country, as the Coast Guard has done at sea for years. But when using the military for a “war on drugs,” she said, “there are rules that have to be adhered to.”
“We want to know that the legal justification is solid and sound, and that the facts that are being represented to Congress in terms of the justification all measure up,” said Murkowski.
Murkowski has previously voted with Democrats to try to curtail the Trump administration’s use of the military for what the president has called a war on drug cartels.
Murkowski said Friday the Trump administration’s goal with its recent strikes on alleged drug boats has not been well defined, and could be meant to target Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
“What has concerned me about the boat strikes in the Caribbean have been that the mission has been perhaps not clearly defined by the administration,” she said, noting that the “vast, vast, vast majority” of drugs coming from Venezuela are not fentanyl, but cocaine, and are bound primarily for the European market.
“So it causes one to ask the question … is this an effort towards regime change?” Murkowski said.
“I want to make sure that what we are doing as we try to eradicate the drugs and keep people safe in this country, that we still are operating within the rules of law,” she added.
Murkowski sits on neither Senate committee that has been briefed on a military strike that has recently come under scrutiny for killing shipwreck survivors, an act that could be contrary to the Pentagon’s own rules. She said that she asked a Republican colleague and a Democratic colleague for their impressions from watching a video of the strike, and heard different accounts from each.
“I haven’t seen it with my eyes, and then two gentlemen who I respect very much came away with a very different reaction to what they saw. I think we all deserve to have full information, and I think right now, we don’t,” Murkowski said.
Sullivan, too, “is still getting the facts on the strike,” his spokesperson Amanda Coyne said on Friday.
Murkowski echoed her concern over Trump’s reaction after a group of Democratic lawmakers released a video calling on members of the military to refuse illegal orders.
Murkowski said the Democrats’ statement was “not an unreasonable thing to say.” However, she said she thought Trump’s response, in which he said the video amounted to seditious behavior punishable by death, was “unreasonable” and “absolutely unacceptable.”
The Department of Defense court-martial proceeding against Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, who participated in the video, is “stunning and shocking” and “an act of political retribution that is just beyond what I could imagine,” Murkowski said.
Murkowski has often been one of a small handful of Republican lawmakers willing to publicly criticize the Trump administration, but she said Friday that she is seeing an increase in the number of members of Congress willing to push back against some Trump actions.
“I think we are seeing more questioning, whether it is matters related to these vessel strikes in the Caribbean, more questioning regarding the issue of tariffs, I think you are seeing a more critical evaluation of some of the actions out of the Pentagon,” she said, mentioning a recent report that found Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth endangered U.S. troops when he shared classified information in a group text message that inadvertently included a journalist.
“I’m seeing members of the Senate that are speaking up now and saying, these types of instances are not good for Congress. They’re not good for the executive. They are a problem and we’ve got a responsibility to speak out,” Murkowski said.
