Alaska: GOP Sen. Murkowski says she supports extending IRA subsidies!

I don't want to get out over my skis here; a single Senator saying that she supports something in an interview is a far cry from them actually voting to do so, especially when you'd need several more members of both the House and Senate (including the leadership of both chambers) to even hold that vote.

Even so, this is still a pretty significant development, given how thin the odds are of the improved subsidies included by the IRA getting extended are at the moment.

This is from an interview with Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkwoski published by the Alaska Beacon yesterday:

Nathaniel Herz: On the specific issue of the enhanced tax credits for the premiums for the individual marketplace health insurance plans — it seems like there is a real question about whether those continue...

Lisa Murkowski: There’s a couple things going against it right now...first of all, Republicans...hate, hate, hate the Inflation Reduction Act (the Biden legislation that extended the credits). And so, I worry a little bit that it’s going to be one of these, ‘We’re just going to throw everything out. We didn’t like those, and so we’re going to let these expire.’

...Given the burden that families are still feeling in so many parts of the country when it comes to inflation — you think about this whole election in 2024, and so much of it was about, ‘Hey, I’m paying so much more for everything.’ So, health care is right in that bucket. And I think you’re going to have real pressure coming on this administration and the Congress to continue these credits.

I’m looking at them really, really carefully...And I think we’re going to need to continue these premium tax credits. And I think it’s not just going to be the pressure that you’re going to hear from Alaskans that are saying, ‘Wow, this is not good.’ But I think (expiration of the credits) has the potential to move us backwards, in terms of the progress that we have made in improving access to health care and affordability.

Nathaniel Herz: So, it sounds like fair to say that you’re a yes, in isolation, on continuing the enhanced credits?

Lisa Murkowski: For the tax credits to continue, yeah. I think we’re going to have to. I don’t know what that may exactly look like — whether it’s just a straight extension, I don’t know. But I think we’re going to have to wrestle with this, and I think we’re going to be hearing a lot from our constituents on it.

The rest of the exchange is worth a read as well. Again, in order for the IRA subsidies to be extended beyond December 31, 2025, a bill extending that expiration date would have to be passed through the GOP-controlled House and the GOP-controlled Senate and then signed into law by...Donald Trump.

Ironically, I think getting Trump to sign such a bill would actually be the easiest part this time around...since any scenario in which both Speaker Johnson and Majority Leader Thune actually allowed it to come to the floor for a vote is so unlikely that it would almost certainly be part of some larger bill that they want.

Still, this is the most promising development for IRA subsidies that I've heard in quite awhile, so I'll take it for the moment.

As a side note, no, I haven't gotten to Alaska in my state-by-state analysis of what the real world impact would be on ACA enrollees if the IRA subsidies are allowed to expire...for a very good reason: Alaska will be the very last state that I publish an analysis of, and it's gonna be a doozy.