Community Mental Health Association of Michigan

Call to Action

As you may know, the Senate Government Operations Committee has held three hearings on Senator Shirkey’s 2-bill integration package (9/14, 9/21 & 9/28). The bills were voted out of committee on Tuesday, October 26, we believe as soon as Sen. Shirkey has the votes to move the bills in the full Senate he will do so. 

In recent media interviews, Sen. Shirkey has described his integration proposal as his top priority for his remaining time in the Michigan Senate. Given the fact that he chairs the committee and being Senate Majority Leader, he holds a tremendous amount of power and control over the day to day business in the Michigan Senate, we believe it is very likely these bills will move out of committee in the next couple of weeks. 

Senate Bills 597 & 598 much like the 298 process from a couple years ago, would shift the Medicaid financing and managed care functions from the public PIHP system to private Medicaid Health Plans.  We once again have significant concerns with this type of proposal and will be launching a series of action alerts to combat this harmful public policy initiative. This action alert will focus on local control & local decision making. 

Make no mistake, SBs 597 & 598 eliminate local control and local decision making by the CMH and give it to for-profit insurance companies who are only accountable to non-elected bureaucrats in Lansing via contracts.  Additionally, the bills will gut the local CMH system by allowing health plans to contract around CMHs and inserts specialty integrated plan (SIP) language into SB 598 which would allow health plans to remove CMHs from their local safety net role as community convener and collaborator.

REQUEST FOR ACTION: We are asking you to reach out to your legislators (House & Senate) and the Governor and URGE them to reject these bills when they come before them for a vote. We need to get as many Senators to oppose SBs 597 & 598 as possible. This approach is nothing more than a health plan money grab, these bills will not improve care for Michigan’s most vulnerable citizens, it will eliminate local decision making and only put more money into the pockets of insurance companies – this is BAD public policy.