Legislative Priorities

Develop Michigan's Health Care Workforce

Issue:
Numerous reports forecast a critical shortage of Michigan’s health care workforce in the near future. The state’s medically underserved communities are most affected by health care provider shortages.

Recommended Actions:
All health professions training programs receiving funding from the State of Michigan should be required to establish collaborative relationships with safety net providers such as Community Health Centers.

When awarding State of Michigan grants or contracts, preference and priority should be given to projects that include safety net providers.

Funding preference should be given to health professions training programs that utilize evidence-based approaches to the recruitment of underrepresented students to health care fields. This may include the recruitment of bilingual or minority students.

Michigan should adopt new, and improve current, incentives for providers who serve underserved communities in order to encourage long-term employment commitment.

Michigan should adopt policies that promote an interdisciplinary approach to health care, including mid-level providers and behavioral and oral health clinicians.

Michigan should contribute funding toward fostering a statewide Area Health Education Center to address the shortage of primary care professionals in underserved areas.

Click here to read the Priority in its entirety.

Provide Health Coverage for All Michigan Residents

Issue:
Over 1 million Michigan residents lack health insurance. Public policymakers must address this need by making health coverage affordable and available to all Michigan residents.

Recommended Action:
Michigan policymakers should adopt a health care coverage program that is available to all Michigan residents and includes a subsidy for low income individuals. While health care reform at the national level is likely forthcoming in some form, it is unlikely that any new coverage for the uninsured will begin for at least two years. Michigan Primary Care Association proposes that the State of Michigan provide primary care coverage for the uninsured NOW using the existing county health plan structure. Working in partnership with Community Health Centers (CHCs), county health plans could provide needed physician services, prescription drugs, and to nearly laboratory and radiology services to nearly all uninsured Michigan residents in households with incomes at or below 150% of poverty. The cost of this coverage would be just under $100 million over the next two years.

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Modernize Michigan's Outdated Revenue Structure

Issue:
For over a decade Michigan has attempted to cuts its way out of budget deficits and has implemented one-time, short-term fixes as ‘solutions’ to a growing structural fiscal crisis. Now our state is trying to operate at 1971 levels at a time when unemployment rates continue to rise and more Michigan residents and businesses rely on government services. Meanwhile, state resources are more than $7 billion below the Headlee Amendment limit on state revenues.

Recommended Action:
Michigan residents must decide what quality of life we want for future generations. Continuing to take a cut-only approach to address the budget deficit is short sighted and compromises the future outlook for our state for many years to come. Michigan cannot continue on this destructive path.

The cuts and one-time fixes of the past, along with recent cuts, will only make us weaker as a state and endanger our future, making Michigan less attractive to future employers and the workforce of the 21st Century. We need to invest to protect critical services and to help build new businesses, create jobs, and make our workers the best trained in the world. If we don't Michigan will not keep up and will fall further behind the rest of the nation.

Click here to read the Priority in its entirety.

Maintain the Integrity of Medicaid

Issue:
Due to Michigan’s continuing economic crisis, the integrity of Medicaid is in jeopardy. It is imperative that the safety net program currently providing the majority of funding for health care services to the state’s low-income residents not be compromised through cuts to eligibility, rates, or services.

Recommended Action:
Steps must be taken to protect Medicaid benefits and eligibility and ensure that reimbursement rates are adequate to maintain a sufficient number of providers willing to provide Medicaid services. Further, we must ensure that should cuts to Medicaid become inevitable the cuts will be based on clinical research and outcomes after consultation and agreement by researchers and practicing clinicians.

Click here to read the Priority in its entirety.

Reinstate Michigan's Medicaid Adult Dental Benefit

Issue:
Have you ever heard the expression “the eyes are the window to the soul”? Well, the mouth is the window to the body’s overall health. Michigan Primary Care Association recognizes that good oral health is vital to maintaining strong overall health.

Recommended Action:
Michigan must reinstate oral health services for Medicaid adults. The impact on health and the cost to the health care system is too significant to ignore.

Click here to read the Priority in its entirety.

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