With 15 percent of workers off the job, we suffer from the highest unemployment in the nation and are among national leaders in such dubious statistics as outbound moving vans and home foreclosures.

This has led to state budget holes in Lansing year after year.  Tough choices have been made by the Legislature and Governor.  Services have been cut, taxes have been raised, and now some Michigan leaders are even talking about bringing terrorist prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Michigan to help fill the current massive budget hole of $2.8 billion.

Michigan cannot afford another economic hit.

That is, in part, why the U.S. House Democrats' version of health care reform currently moving its way through Congress is so bad for Michigan.  Buried in the 1,000-plus page measure is a provision to dramatically expand Medicaid, adding 11 million Americans to its rolls.  

To fund the huge expansion, House Democrats propose that states assume an additional $35 billion liability over the next 10 years, including a $4.8 billion hit to Michigan's budget. Tennessee's Democrat Governor Phil Bredesen called this provision "the mother of all unfunded mandates."

The Democrats' measure also hurts Michigan's ability to run its own Medicaid program by introducing new mandates on patient care and by preempting state authority to manage Medicaid eligibility and benefits.

This massive, one-size-fits-all federal expansion into health care would severely harm Michigan's ability to address its own health care needs. Governor Granholm has worked to protect state employee health benefits, but the U.S. House bill would cede authority to the newly-created federal Health Choices Commissioner to dictate plan terms.  Tax penalties or drastic cuts in Michigan's federal grants could be used to force compliance.

Granholm has stated her support for the creation of a government-run insurance plan to "compete" with private insurance plans. The House bill allows a state to create its own government-run insurance plan but then grants the Health Choices Commissioner located in some anonymous office somewhere in Washington, D.C. the authority to terminate that plan at anytime for any reason.

On top of all that, this legislation hurts seniors by cutting more than $400 billion from critical Medicare benefits, including home health services, nursing home and hospice care, and it kicks 300,000 Michigan seniors off their Medicare Advantage plans.  The bill effectively eliminates Health Savings Accounts, which 187,000 Michiganders use to cover their health care needs.

There are better ways to make sure all Americans have the health care they need, and it can be done without government-run health care and without ratcheting up the burden on the budgets of Michigan and other economically challenged states. Reforms should end discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, create small business health plans and high-risk pools, expand health savings accounts, and crack down on frivolous lawsuits that run doctors out of business.

Michigan's governor should put Michigan's interests first and work for bipartisan common-sense health reforms that do not further jeopardize our state's dire economic situation.  Although that may not be popular with those who want the federal government to run health care, Michigan families will be much better off for it.

- Mike Rogers