Legislative Update: Week of April 16th

As the legislature comes back into session after its two week spring break, money, appropriations and budgets weigh on the minds of the legislators. What does that mean for health care, well Medicaid and Medicaid funding are now the top topics floating around the halls of the Capitol, lets review the activities of this last week:

House:

The House Health Policy Committee did meet on Thursday to consider one bill House Bill 4718 which would allow dental assistant to work with dental hygienists when the dentist was not in the office to supervise, under current statues the dentist needs to be present in the office for a dental assistant to provide a second set of hands. Testimony was taken on the legislation and should be taken up for a vote next week. They also had a presentation from J & B Medical to demonstrate telemedicine and the products they were offering for physicians and patients.

Senate:

The Senate did not have Health Policy committee this week and the majority of the work done by the Senate surrounded environmental protections and rules for the Department of Environmental Quality.

Appropriations:

This is where the majority of the work in the Legislature was done this week. Both full Appropriations Committees considered their respective budget bills. The Senate continued with the recommendation from the subcommittee and had the $100 placeholder for graduate medical education and kept in the boilerplate (language that says how the money is needed to be spent or offers legislative intent) that the Department of Community Health needs to create a formula for GME funding that promotes primary care and keeping residents in Michigan.

The House committee agreed with their subcommittee and kept the $18 Million appropriated to graduate medical education. This is an increase from this current fiscal year of just under $1 Million. The chambers are expected to swap bills and start the process over again to come to some conclusion and to hopefully have the budget done by June 1.

Autism:

This week Governor Snyder was in Afghanistan to meet with the members of the Michigan National Guard and soldiers from Michigan offering support for those serving and letting them know there will be support for them when they return to Michigan. With the Governor being out of the country Lieutenant Governor Brian Calley was acting Governor for the past week and had the privilege of signing the Autism insurance bills. Lieutenant Governor Calley has personal experience dealing with Autism which made the bill signing an extra special event. MSMS was invited to attend the signing and did.

For more information concerning government and health activities or if your wondering what the legislature is doing, check out our website at http://www.msms.org/advocacy.

For those wanting to get involved in helping shape Michigan's direction visit and support MDPAC at http://www.mdpac.org