With elections finally over and the
legislature facing its final weeks in Lansing, the chaos of lame duck is about
to start. With the House Republicans losing five members, those leaving have
agenda items that they would like to see get done in these short weeks. Those
members find themselves fighting against the Governor who also has issues that
he would like to see completed before the House and Senate head home for the
holidays.
Let’s take a look at what we feel
will be the top five projects the legislature will be working on in this coming
lame duck session:
1.
Blue Cross/Blue Shield
Mutualization: With the Senate pushing through their legislation before Election
Day, we find that the House has a different story. Hearings have started in the
House Insurance committee and have been marathon meetings starting last week
and going through this week discussing issues surrounding Medigap and having
the Attorney General Bill Schutte testifying that with this package we are
pushing Michigan senior towards a cliff, possibly leaving them without the some
of the coverage seniors need. MSMS has amendments it will be looking to
introduce in the coming weeks to the package protecting some the privileges
offered under PA 350.
2.
Personal Property Tax Reform: This
is a request and an issue that is important to the Governor and the Lieutenant
Governor. This has been an interest to this administration in the past. While
LG Calley was a member of the House he was the minority chair for the House Tax
Policy committee where eliminating the PPT was an interest to him at that time.
A good thing for the LG is that Speaker Bolger is of the same opinion as him, I
would imagine that the House will work to get the PPT off the books before they
head home.
3.
Health Care Exchanges: With the
Senate tackling this issue earlier this year, the House had a wait and see
attitude when it came to the exchanges, first waiting for the United States
Supreme Court to render its decision then waiting to see the outcome of the
elections, the House now faces either federal implementation for work hard over
the next few weeks to get a state exchange in place. We'll see what the
legislature can accomplish when the majority feels that this isn't the program
they wanted to deal with.
4.
Regional Transit Authority: With
Detroit dealing with several financial problems, the thought of a regional
transit authority would ease those concerns that surround the transit system.
This issue has come up time after time and has never been able to make it out
of the legislature, maybe this time it could.
5.
PA 4 Replacement: With Michiganders
choosing to take the Emergency Financial Manager act off the books we find the
state going back to the Emergency Manager act taking away some powers that some
would argue were able to get some off the cities and school districts back on
better footing. Now some feel there needs to be a replacement that would still
provide the authority that the managers need to get these municipal units back
on course.
Other items on the horizon could be
mining taxes, educational achievement authorities, and the discussion that with
the failure of proposition 2 and 4 if that is a signal to the legislature that
Michigan is ready to be a Right to Work state.
MSMS will be making our final push
for this legislative session on Tort Reform. We still continue to feel positive
that we could get some movement on this during lame duck. We also will be
working on getting our impaired drivers legislation moved from the House floor
and to the Governor's desk and hopefully seeing movement on Expedited Partner
Therapy by sine die.
Stay with MSMS throughout this lame duck session to get the
latest information affecting you at http://www.msms.org/advocacy.
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