Health Care for Michigan
At this evening’s City Commission meeting the following resolution, which I authored with help of my dedicated and capable intern Kellie Freemire, will be up for consideration:
Resolved by the Commission of the City of Battle Creek:
There are more than one million Michigan citizens that do not have health insurance and hundreds of thousands more are “under-insured,” meaning they lack enough health coverage to care for serious illness or injury.
Over 15,000 Calhoun County residents have no health insurance. Calhoun County has been determined by the Department of Health and Human Services to have a medically underserved population and to be a professional health shortage area.
Health care costs continue to rise every year. Each year more residents drop their health insurance because they can’t afford it and each year more businesses drop health coverage for their employees because the business cannot remain competitive and pay high health insurance costs. The burdens to businesses of financing our broken health care system represents a competitive disadvantage for Michigan.
In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2007, the City of Battle Creek expended approximately $6.6 million on employee and retiree health cares costs.
A system that controls costs while providing high-quality comprehensive care is needed in Michigan.
Therefore, the City Commission of the City of Battle Creek, affirms that:
- The public health and general welfare of the people are matters of primary public concern.
- The state legislature has a responsibility to pass suitable laws for the promotion and protection of the public health.
- The state legislature is called upon to pass laws to ensure that every Michigan resident has affordable and comprehensive health care coverage through a fair and cost-effective financing system.
- The state legislature is called upon to pass a plan that, through public or private measures, controls health care costs and provides for medically necessary preventative, primary, acute, and chronic health care needs.
- To these ends, we support the passage of the Michigan Health Care Security Ballot Proposal, which, if passed, would compel the state legislature to act on these responsibilities.
For more information about the ballot proposal, visit healthcareformichigan.org.
Please show your support for the resolution by contacting the City Commission — by email or phone or in person by attending tonight’s meeting. Our meetings are held on the third floor of City Hall (10 N. Division), beginning at 7:00 pm. Thank you!