By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
With Alaska health insurance premiums at three times the national average, Alaskans need to send someone to the U.S. Senate with knowledge and experience about the health care system, says Al Gross, who is considering a run for Congress.
“As a doctor, as a lifelong Alaskan, I really care about the future,” Gross said last week in an interview with the Sentinel. “Health care is very complicated but if we don’t send someone to the Senate who both understands health care and is motivated to fix it, I don’t think we’ll get out of the mess we’re in statewide or nationally.”
Gross, who lives in Anchorage and Petersburg, was on a statewide listening tour before deciding sometime this summer whether he will run as a nonpartisan candidate against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in 2020.
“I’m visiting as many communities and villages as I can get to, listening to them about issues and problems and potential solutions,” he said.
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Al Gross
(Sentinel Photo by Reber Stein)
Gross, an orthopedic surgeon with a master’s degree in public health, said he was inspired to look into running after he saw Dan Sullivan “run away from health care two years ago.”
“He made it clear he didn’t understand it very well, and wouldn’t address the single biggest economic problem in the state,” Gross said. “I felt I was not only more in touch with Alaska but better qualified to address the biggest problems in the state.”
Born and raised in Juneau, Gross, 57, has been a commercial fisherman for most of his life and continues to practice surgery part time in Petersburg. Since 2013, he has volunteered as a teacher of orthopedic surgery in Cambodia. He is the son of the late Avrum Gross, attorney general for Gov. Jay Hammond, and Shari (Gross) Teeple, the first executive director of the United Fishermen of Alaska.
He was in Sitka last week learning more about fisheries issues at the meeting of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council.
Gross attended high school in Juneau and in Andover, Massachusetts, at Phillips Academy. He earned his bachelor’s in neuroscience at Amherst College, and his medical degree through the WAMI (Washington, Alaska, Montana, Idaho) program at the University of Washington. He practiced orthopedic surgery in Juneau for two decades.
“I was getting less and less satisfaction in orthopedic surgery in Juneau and seeing what Alaska’s highest-in-the-world health care prices were doing to both the state economy and my friends, many of whom were commercial fishermen,” he said. “I didn’t want to be part of the problem anymore. I wanted to learn the tools I needed to be part of the solution.”
He went back to school to earn his master’s in public health from the University of California-Los Angeles, and with his wife became an advocate for fixing the health care system in Alaska.
“It’s the single biggest problem that our state has with respect to its economy and lack of economic growth,” Gross said. “I’m concerned about high drug prices, high out-of-pocket expenses ... Many Alaskans face the situation where they’re trying to decide between whether they can afford to buy drugs or put food on the table.”
For the last two years he and his wife have lived in Anchorage, but maintain a residence in Petersburg. Gross gillnets all over Southeast, including the Deep Inlet fishery near Sitka.
He’s interested in other issues affecting the state, including climate change.
“As a fisherman, it’s critical we do adequate research to understand the changing climate to make sure we preserve the way of life for fishermen,” Gross said.
He is opposed to the Pebble Mine project in Bristol Bay.
“I don’t believe the mine is good for Alaskans,” he said.
Gross said he believes in women’s rights, and that the government should stay out of people’s lives – “Women’s health care is included in that,” he said.
The listening tour is taking him all over Southeast. Before coming to Sitka, he was in Petersburg, Wrangell, Prince of Wales Island and Ketchikan. This week he was visiting residents in Bristol Bay communities, and plans to head next to the Mat-Su Valley, the Kenai Peninsula, Bethel, Fairbanks and Utqiagvik.
“I’ve gotten only great feedback so far, and a lot of enthusiasm for pushing forward,” Gross said.
