Alaska nudges up what it pays to house low-income seniors

Alaska raised what it pays assisted living homes to care for low-income seniors, from $109.32 to $113.13 a day, effective July 1. It's a 3.5% bump — about $3,400 a month per resident — and it lands well short of what it actually costs to keep someone in care here.

Alaska has some of the most expensive assisted living in the country, with a median cost around $10,000 a month, and costs have been climbing faster than the state's payment is rising.

The advisory Alaska Commission on Aging argues the whole model is broken: the homes are required to provide round-the-clock care but the state funds them as if they deliver only eight hours of it. As residents get older and sicker, the commission says, reimbursement hasn't kept up.

The increase came through the state budget the governor signed in June, and the health department applied it right away rather than waiting to rewrite the underlying regulations — the same move it made in 2022, the last time it played catch-up on these rates.