Policy Initiatives and Infrastructure (2008 Score / Cumulative Score (2005–2008)
Screening Requirements
There are no new screening requirements. (0 / 1)
Task Forces
There is no new cervical cancer prevention task force legislation. (0 /0)
Access to HPV Vaccines
There is no HPV vaccine activity. (0 / 0)
HPV Vaccine Information Programs
There is no HPV vaccine information activity. (0 / 0)
Miscellaneous
There is no new miscellaneous cervical cancer prevention activity. (0 / 0) Additional Notes: The Department of Health and Social Services will distribute more than 20,000 doses of Gardasil to public and private health clinics in the state; nearly two-thirds of Alaska girls qualify to receive the vaccine at no cost.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=HPV_legislation_in_Alaska
From what I can find there is NO official forcing or requirement in Alaska. Only free if the people want it but no mandate by Alaska.
You are correct that there was no mandate by Alaska. When they accepted the federal money, they were under federal regulations then and consequently did not need to write any legislation in Alaska.
To be covered (paid for) by Medicaid or any other government program, a drug must be considered necessary ie mandated by the government. Otherwise it is not covered by public funds.
When Texas would not accept tax payer money to pay for this drug, not permitting itself to be held by any federal regulations and opting instead to keep it local using the private sector funds, the same thing applied... for the drug to be covered by insurance, it would need to be listed as a necessary / mandated drug. Only doing it that way, Perry could have the cost covered locally instead of through the federal government (otherwise known as tax payers money), and he then also had the opportunity to include an opt-out.
I actually have a different problem with all of this. I say if the parents really cared about their children enough to begin with, they wouldn't put their children in a government run school where they relinquish some of their parental rights anyway and have to be subject to the rules of the government whom their children have been place with. It is a GOVERNMENT school, people! I refused to give up any of my parental rights and did not give my kids to the government to raise, even if it may have been only a partial loss of parental rights in the best of circumstances. Government schools are owned BY THE GOVERNMENT, duh, and if you give your kids to them, you are subject to them in many ways. If you don't like those rules, home school your children like I did. Then you are opted out of government overreach junk all the time.
At least Perry opted to handle this situation locally instead of forcing tax payers from around the country to flip the bill for Texas children, and he refused to allow Texas to become subject to the federal oversight for this which would have come from using tax payers dollars.
I don't like what he did, but honestly, I don't like the 18 states that simply took the federal money for it either.
So you are right... you won't find an Alaskan mandate on this at all. There was no need to have an Alaskan mandate since Alaska took tax payer money to have a Gardasil program and subsequently became subject to the federal government's policies.
Oh, and if you are interested, Alaska recommended Gardasil for 9 - 26 year old girls and women but kept the free-compliments-of-the-tax-payers-of-America vaccination age to what they were directly given funding for from the federal government, to girls and women ages 9 - 18. Alaska then recommended women ages 18 - 26 get their Gardasil vaccinations through Medicaid or if not qualified to receive the free vaccines, to get their vaccines through a special finance plan Alaska had set up with Merck & Co. Inc., the vaccine's manufacturer. (Talk about setting up sweet deals for Merck.)
http://hss.state.ak.us/press/2007/pr053107fed-funding-hpv-vax.htm
More recent:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2777712/posts
http://pajamasmedia.com/tatler/2011/09/13/sarah-palins-alaska-took-federal-funds-to-increase-access-to-gardasil/
PS... I don't really blame ANY of the governors at that time, Palin included, for thinking Gardasil was a good vaccine. It was a national movement, all the states were starting to move towards getting it, and it was being heavily pushed by the CDC and other national health organizations. For those governors at that time in history, it was not whether Gardasil was good or not, it was HOW they wanted to go about getting it to the children in their states.