Legislative Update Week of March 11th

With the budget and road funding taking the front seat for the legislature over the past couple weeks, this week the House switched to education with the House Education committee passing out the Education Achievement Authority legislation; while in the Senate bear petting seemed to be on their minds. Lets review what happened in the terms of health care:

House

This week the House Health Policy committee meet to hear a presentation and consider House Resolution 11 which requests that syringe and scalpel safety scores be included in the accreditation audits of health facilities. Over the past couple years there has been a push from some within the legislature along with other outside groups with a vested interest in sharps safety to push for the safety scores to be added to the standards. The committee did take testimony and reported the resolution favorably to the full House for their consideration. It was adopted by the House on the next day after the committee meeting.

Senate:

The Senate Health Policy committee meet to consider Senate Bill 136, commonly known as the Conscientious Objector act, it would provide limited provisions for physicians to decline providing treatment to patients if they have an objection due to their conscience. The committee took testimony but did not act on the legislation. The committee also considered Senate Bill 165 which would require health facilities to provide information to patients on the life-sustaining treatment options or denial of nonbenifical treatment within a facility. If a minor is involved they legal guardian would receive the information. The committee did act on the legislation, voting it to the Senate floor.

Budget:

The subcommittees took a break this week to prepare their perspective budget bills to begin moving the budgets between the chambers. The House bill is HB 4213 with the Senate bill still to come. This is the start of the legislative votes that will continue from now until just before June. Stay with MSMS for updates on the budget along with other activities in the Michigan Legislature at http://www.msms.org/advocacy.