Text of ballot language:
"The State legislature shall pass laws to make sure that every Michigan resident has affordable and comprehensive health care coverage through a fair and cost-effective financing system. The Legislature is required to pass a plan that, through public or private measures, controls health care costs and provides for medically necessary preventive, primary, acute and chronic health care needs."
Sen. George floor statement on socialied health care ballot initiative from January 9, 2008:
I rise to comment on a proposed constitutional amendment which would require the state to provide comprehensive health insurance to all its residents. The proponents of this initiative have held press conferences throughout the state, including one in my district yesterday, where they were joined by my neighboring Senator, the Senator from the 19th District.
The group proposes an amendment to our State Constitution requiring us to enact laws to ensure that affordable and comprehensive health care coverage is available to everyone in Michigan. The proposal apparently would make the state provide health insurance to those who are currently uninsured. This proposal, colleagues, is flawed because it fails to include a funding mechanism. It fails to say how the state would pay to expand health insurance to this group.
The cost could be determined by simple math. If there exist one million Michigan residents without insurance, as the proponents say, and the cost of insurance, as called for in the measure, is, say, $3,000-$4,000 per year, than the cost to the state could be as much as $3-$4 billion per year.
The Battle Creek Enquirer reported that Victoria Kovari, a campaign spokeswomen for the group, said that she was confident Michigan residents would support the initiative despite the need for new taxes to implement it. I read that the
Governor and the Lieutenant Governor are endorsing this measure. I also have read elsewhere that the Governor has said she is not supportive of raising any new taxes on the citizens of Michigan. If so, how can these two positions be reconciled? How can we provide comprehensive health care insurance to a million Michigan residents without a huge tax increase? I don’t believe that it can be done.
If it is important that the Legislature make comprehensive health insurance available to all, then why don’t the legislative proponents of this cause introduce such legislation so the rest of us can see how it would work? Rather than hide behind a ballot proposal, which requires no fiscal analysis, I challenge the legislative supporters of this measure to avail themselves of the resources of their elected offices and introduce such legislation so that we can all see it and ask the Senate Fiscal Agency for an analysis of the cost.
The proponents have argued, and I heard the voice of one of my colleagues on a local radio station stating, that there is enough money in the system to cover the uninsured. Well, let us see then what your proposal is and where the money will come from and how you would do it.
I would note that the Governor’s own Michigan First Health Plan would fail to meet the ballot proposal’s requirement of a comprehensive plan. You will recall that her Michigan First plan includes a limited annual benefit. It is not comprehensive, and it is not intended to cover all of the uninsured. So the Governor’s own plan, which the administration has been working on now for over two years and which remains unfunded, would not meet the standard called for in the proposal.
So I would ask the Governor as well how would she modify her Michigan First plan so that it provides the comprehensive coverage for all the uninsured as the ballot proposal calls for and how it would be paid for.
The ballot proposal then is flawed. It lacks any concrete plan or funding mechanism. It is merely a feel-good statement. Its legislative proponents are using it as a campaign tool when they already have the ability to introduce their own plans for universal health coverage in Michigan at any time but have chosen not to do so. I challenge them and the Governor to show us their plan for universal coverage. Let us all in on your secret plan.