Updates About Legislation

The Michigan Senate voted unanimously, 35-0, to pass earmark transparency bills SB 596 and HB 4420. The House and Senate equivalent bills would require all legislative earmarks to be submitted at least 45 days prior to being voted on. Earmarks are requested by legislators and are directed to an organization through grant funding in the state budget for a specific project.

House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) previously led the charge to set the period at 60 days after the Senate had passed the bill with a 10-day period prior to voting. In addition to the 45-day compromise, SB 596 also specifies that any earmark proposal done in the first year of a two year legislative session can be funded in both fiscal years. Earmarks proposed in the second year would still only apply to the final fiscal year of the budget cycle.

Both bills passed the House with a 101-0 vote before being presented to the governor. On November 18th, both bills were signed by Governor Whitmer with immediate effect.

Three bills, SB 449, SB 450, and SB 451, that aim to ease the burden of medical debt were recently brought before the Senate Health Policy Committee. The bipartisan package spearheaded by Sen. Sarah Anthony (D-Lansing) and Sen. Jonathan Lindsey (R-Coldwater) with assistance from the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, would require that hospitals implement a financial assistance program for medical bills that align with the patient’s income and insurance. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services would create the collection process and determine patient eligibility. The bills would also ban reporting agencies from creating consumer reports with patients’ medical debt information, which could hurt their credit score as well as loan eligibility.

The package is expected to be voted on at the next committee hearing.

Recently, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the nine remaining bills from the 2023-2024 legislature must be sent to Governor Whitmer for a signing decision. The court upheld that the state Constitution requires presentation of the bills and ordered the House to abide by the ruling. The court ruled that while the Michigan Constitution does not set a strict schedule for the House to present a bill, the Constitution does state that once passed the mandatory next step for a bill passed by both chambers is to be presented in front of the governor.

House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township) had refused to present the bills, arguing that the current House was unable to do so because they were passed under a former Legislature. One of the nine bills now set for presentment is one that would require governments to pay more of their employees’ health insurance premiums.