text: FAIRBANKS August 3, 2017 — Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield, the only insurer in Alaska's individual health insurance market, announced Tuesday it had filed for a rate decrease of more than 20 percent for the year 2018.
  The state Division of Insurance still has to approve the request. However, if approved, it would be the first time the average rate has decreased under the current federal health care law in Alaska. ((Daily News_ Miner)  This is the main reason Murkowski chose the path of protecting all Alaskans and their access to health care.  Measures in Alaska taken to get citizens on the ACA and with medicaide expansion have reduced the price of premiums to all in this state. Putting the state back to the way it was for decades and many citizens having no way to pay for heath care makes the cost of health care a financial burden on the rest of us who have health insurance. And of course, Planned Parenthood offers low costs reproductive heath care to women.