Dunleavy, who tried to eliminate WWAMI program, now claims to be its champion

In 2019, Gov. Mike Dunleavy called for an end to state support for the WWAMI program that has helped Alaskans become doctors for a half-century, claiming the program was not worth it.

Fortunately for Alaska, the Legislature paid no attention to the governor and WWAMI survived.

Alaska, which does not have a medical school, provides a subsidy for 20 Alaskans to attend medical school each year via the University of Washington, with training that starts in Anchorage.

The program, which costs about $3 million a year, has helped transform medical care in many parts of Alaska because most of the graduates return to Alaska and establish their careers here.

Dunleavy claimed otherwise three years ago.

“The WWAMI program has not proven effective at meeting the demand for new physicians, despite a significant state investment over the years,” Dunleavy falsely claimed in his so-called Honest Budget three years ago. “Diminishing returns of this program are not sustainable in the current fiscal environment.”

“From calendar year 2014 through calendar year 2018, the percent of graduates practicing in Alaska has decreased from 84 percent to 61 percent,” his office said.

Dunleavy was wrong about the number of doctors returning to Alaska from the five-state medical venture known as WWAMI. And he was wrong about the effectiveness of the program. About 60 percent of the Alaska students return to practice medicine in Alaska.

Those who don’t have to pay back the state to make up for half of their subsidized tuition, creating a strong incentive for doctors to practice in Alaska.

The letters stand for the participation by Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.

As I wrote at the time, it took me about 10 minutes to find that Dunleavy’s numbers were inaccurate. The WWAMI program has long been a great success, one of the key elements in dealing with the shortage of doctors in Alaska.

In 2019, the Legislature blocked Dunleavy’s proposal to end the medical program, but last summer the governor again tried to end funding through the policy decision he made by expanding the number of designated funds subject to the “sweep.”

Dunleavy applied a new interpretation to the medical school funding, other higher education scholarships, and the handling of the Power Cost Equalization program in 2019. He repeated that approach last summer.

“Nothing technical is driving an expanded sweep—any expansion of the list is a policy decision completely in the hands of the governor,” as the Legislative Finance Division said in 2019.

To keep medical school students in WWAMI from paying tens of thousands more for tuition and fees, the University of Alaska decided to cover higher education scholarships for the fiscal year if necessary.

It was only after Dunleavy lost a court case about the PCE that he restored funding for the WWAMI students in the 2021-22 academic year.

Now, just in time for his reelection campaign, Dunleavy has had a complete change of heart about the merits of the WWAMI program. He no longer says it is ineffective or that it shows “diminishing returns.”

Candidate Dunelavy wants to increase state spending on WWAMI by $1.6 million to allow 30 students to enter the program, up from 20.

He mentioned his new support for WWAMI in his State of the State speech Tuesday, citing it as one of three initiatives to “address the shortages we’ve identified in our health care workforce.”

“If approved by the Legislature, we’ll go from 20 seats to 30 seats at the University of Washington School of Medicine to train doctors to work in Alaska,” Dunleavy said.

His past opposition to WWAMI makes his sincerity suspect. When he was in the Senate, Dunleavy said that training doctors to serve in Alaska was not required by the Alaska Constitution and was not a fundamental program.

"I am rendering things through the lens of 'Is it constitutionally mandated? Is it a fundamental program?' " he told the Anchorage Daily News in 2015. "This is not constitutionally mandated. This is not a fundamental program. So does it lie on the outer edge of programs that may be cut? Sure it does, for those reasons."

Dunleavy is also facing a lawsuit over his handling of the WWAMI funding and the $410 million higher education fund set up by the Legislature under former Gov. Sean Parnell.

The Alaskans selected for medical school under this program for 50 years have a tremendous track record, which Dunleavy ignored in his repeated attempts to block funding.

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