ANNIE GOWEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
ALASKA IS
FLAGGING
Health Care Act and expanding
mental health services for veterans. Today, Begich’s goal was far
more modest: to revise federal law
to accommodate Native Alaskans’
diets by allowing public facilities
like hospitals to serve traditional
Alaskan dishes.
As Begich and Cantwell made
small talk about the leanness of
caribou and the tenderness of
seal ribs, about a dozen hospital
administrators anxiously stood
off-camera. The visit wasn’t only
about securing Begich’s future,
but theirs as well. Nowhere is the
procurement of federal resources
more central to a state’s survival
HUFFINGTON
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than in Alaska, where Washington
props up about one-third of the
state’s economy and a similar percentage of its jobs.
Already that day, Begich and
Cantwell had been given a breathless tour of the medical center, accompanied by the standard cadre
of harried aides making sure the
senators kept to their schedule,
and grant-hungry administrators,
making sure they didn’t.
Out of earshot, hospital staff
groused about sequestration’s effects on preventive health initiatives, and worried whether Congress’ frugality would undermine
their ability to medevac patients
from the remote towns that dot
the landscape.
For decades, Alaska was de-
The streets
of Homer, a
“quaint little
drinking town
with a fishing
problem.”