Updated September 3, 2026. Quick answer: yes, through Alaskans Living Independently (ALI) Waiver. Medicaid does not pay the facility’s room and board either way; only the care and service component.
What Alaska covers
| Waiver / state plan option | Alaskans Living Independently (ALI) Waiver |
|---|---|
| Covers an assisted living setting? | Yes: adults 21+ needing nursing-facility-level care who live in their own home, the home of a loved one, or an assisted living residence, providing services such as respite care, chores, residential living, care coordination, and environmental modifications |
| Room and board | Never covered by Medicaid, in Alaska or any state; see below. |
The room-and-board split
Federal law is the floor every state builds on: “The Secretary may by waiver provide that a State plan approved under this subchapter may include as “medical assistance” under such plan payment for part or all of the cost of home or community-based services (other than room and board) approved by the Secretary” (42 U.S.C. §1396n(c)(1), Social Security Act §1915(c)). The words in parentheses do the work: whatever a state’s waiver pays for inside an assisted living community, it is not the rent, the meals, or the room itself. That portion stays the resident’s own to fund, out of income, savings, or a family contribution; the waiver only ever reaches the care and service layer on top of it. We did not find Alaska’s own materials restating this point in the sources read this session; the federal rule above still governs.
The waitlist
Not published by the state in the materials reviewed this session.
Paying for care is the harder half
What a waiver covers is only part of the problem, because room and board still has to come from somewhere, and an adviser can look at income, savings and the likely timeline together before a placement decision is made.
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What you get to keep: the personal needs allowance
$1,396.00 a month: a monthly personal needs allowance of $1,656 for a recipient living at home and receiving HCBS waiver services, and $1,396 for a recipient living in an assisted living home while receiving HCBS waiver services (compare: $75/month for a long-term care facility resident) This is the amount of a waiver participant’s own income the state lets them keep for personal spending after the rest goes toward the cost of their care; it varies by state because each state sets its own figure inside the federal floor.
What this doesn’t answer
The $1,396 figure is unusually high for what is normally a small pocket-money allowance; it appears to function as a combined income/maintenance-needs deduction letting a community-based waiver participant retain enough income for rent and living costs, not classic institutional spending money; reported with that caveat rather than presented as a simple like-for-like comparison to other states’ figures. A waitlist count specific to the ALI waiver (as opposed to Alaska’s other waivers) was not found in a primary source this session.
Sources
Read September 3, 2026.
Same question, other states: Arizona · Arkansas.
Related: what assisted living actually costs · assisted living vs. staying home vs. a CCRC · why home care has a waitlist and a nursing home doesn’t.
General information drawn from each state’s own Medicaid agency and federal statute, not legal, tax or financial advice. Medicaid is administered state by state; waiver names, coverage decisions, waitlists and allowance amounts change by state budget and legislative action. This page cannot see your own state’s current caseload. We are not a law firm, a benefits counselor, or a fiduciary, and this is not personalized advice. We sell nothing on this page and earn nothing from it.