Alaska's senators voted to let a Medicare AI pilot keep running

Alaska's two senators voted last week against a Democratic effort to kill a Medicare program that uses artificial intelligence to decide whether some treatments get approved.

The Senate rejected the motion to take up S.J. Res. 198 on July 16 by a vote of 46-50, with Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan both voting no. The resolution would have overturned the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rule behind the WISeR model, a six-year pilot that contracts private companies to run AI-assisted prior authorization on services in traditional Medicare, including treatments for chronic back pain, nerve stimulation for sleep apnea, and wound care. The pilot launched in January and currently operates in six states — New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and Washington. Alaska is not among them.

Two days earlier, both senators voted the other way on a bill that also failed. A cloture motion on S. 4784, the fiscal year 2027 defense authorization bill, fell 50-46, well short of the 60 votes needed to advance it. Murkowski and Sullivan both voted yes.