Healthcare
Brendan’s Plan for a Healthier Michigan
When I had COVID-19 in March and April of 2020, I was denied testing twice because of an unprepared healthcare system and a lack of leadership in our federal government. I watched as our nation’s numbers climbed higher and higher, and the entire time I was sick, my experience was literally unaccounted for in the data. And it wasn’t just me: hundreds of Michiganders have had COVID-19, only to finally have access to testing after we had already recovered. Clearly our country’s healthcare system was woefully underprepared for this pandemic, but this isn’t new. In 2019, Michigan ranked 32nd in America’s Health Rankings. Every Michigander deserves access to quality, affordable, and specialized healthcare. It is simply a human right, and we must fix our broken system.
So here’s my plan:
Health is a Human Right
Protect and preserve the Healthy Michigan Plan. The Healthy Michigan Plan expanded healthcare access to 700,000 Michiganders who did not previously have it. Nearly one in three low-income people who enrolled in Michigan’s expanded Medicaid program discovered they had a chronic illness that had never been diagnosed before. This plan saves the lives of Michiganders and must be preserved.
Defend Michiganders’ right to healthcare from counterproductive work requirements. Before a federal judge blocked Michigan's Medicaid work requirement, more than 80,000 people were set to lose coverage in June 2020. Nearly two-thirds of non-disabled adult Medicaid beneficiaries hold full-time or part-time jobs, and those who don’t work are limited in their ability to work because of health problems, schooling, child care, or other needs. They also face major barriers to steady employment or cannot navigate the procedural barriers. Work requirements have been proven not to work countless times, and several rigorous studies have found that SNAP work requirements reduce enrollment and have little to no employment benefits. Healthcare is a human right and I will always fight for it.
Enact a Michigan Healthcare Bill of Rights. We need to protect people with pre-existing conditions, prevent massive rate hikes, protect essential health benefits, prevent annual or lifetime healthcare coverage gaps, and stop the “Age Tax.”
Prescription Drugs
Lower the cost of prescription drugs by introducing greater competition into the domestic drug market. In Michigan, the AARP estimates 32 percent of adults forgo medications due to cost. Four states — Colorado, Florida, Maine and Vermont — have already enacted measures to establish programs to import cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. It only makes sense that the state with closest relations with Canada would do the same.
Cap the cost-sharing price or copay of insulin and other notable vital drugs. This is a simple piece of legislation that will help Michiganders afford the prescription drugs they need to stay healthy. No one should go bankrupt to stay healthy or even alive.
Increase price transparency. We should be requiring manufacturers to notify the state 60 days in advance of any planned increase of 10% or more in the price of brand-name drugs, and any 25% or greater increase in the price of generic drugs. This will give doctors and patients enough advance notice to adjust and consider what to do.
Health Equity
Promote, expand, and improve the use of integrated healthcare. When patients are sent to different health care providers depending on their specific ailment, oftentimes that provider is only seeing a snapshot of the patient, and their treatment is siloed from the rest of that patient’s medical providers. Integrated health modalities are a means of tackling poverty, inequality, and the social systems by improving health outcomes for those impacted by social determinants of health.
Incentivize all Michigan healthcare providers to use the same Electronic Health Records system. By having all Michigan healthcare providers using the same EHR system, countless hours (and dollars!) are saved from no longer needing to fill out introductory forms each time you visit a new doctor. Medical professionals will be better able to focus on individual patients holistically, seeing the whole picture of a patient to make better care judgments and be able to communicate more efficiently with a patient’s other providers.
Improve healthcare service to BIPOC communities by increasing the number of BIPOC doctors and healthcare professionals. While Michigan’s Black population is roughly 14 percent, just 5% of physicians in the U.S. are Black. There is ever-mounting evidence that better healthcare is provided when the patient and physician are of the same race. Typically not an issue for white Michiganders, this is a feature of systemic racism for many BIPOC Michiganders. We need not only to make Michigan an attractive place for doctors to live and work, but also use aggressive affirmative action tools to make medical school affordable and accessible to all communities – especially those currently underrepresented in our workforce.
Improve care for adults with autism. Adults with autism are less likely to have their routine health needs met, from dental check-ups to tetanus vaccinations, and women with autism are significantly less likely to visit a gynecologist as well. Michigan should take the lead from Utah, and work to make holistic care for adults on the spectrum a promising reality in our state.
Reduce Black infant and maternal mortality rates. Throughout Michigan, three times as many Black babies die in their first year of life as white babies, a ratio that has risen at an alarming rate in recent years. This disparity extends to mothers as well. In Michigan, nearly three times more Black women die during pregnancy and childbirth. We must train providers to address bias and racism and build a healthcare workforce demographically reflective of our population. We must increase access to prenatal care, urge healthcare providers to “bundle” maternity care, and address the socio-economic issues that are leaving Black women and infants more vulnerable.
Ensure access to affordable, safe family planning services. Every year, bills are proposed in state legislatures around the country to limit access to family planning services, despite the Supreme Court continually ruling these unconstitutional. These reckless anti-choice bills are misguided, not based in science, and are simply unjust.
Oppose abstinance-only sex education pedagogy and curriculum. Analysis confirms previous public health findings that abstinence-only education programs do not succeed in reducing rates of teen pregnancies nor STDs. Not only is abstinence-only sex education woefully neglectful of LGBT students and their needs, but according to a 2004 report, language used in abstinence-based curricula often reinforces "gender stereotypes about female passivity and male aggressiveness" — attitudes that often correlate with harmful outcomes including domestic violence.
Combat the HIV epidemic by ending the public stigma of HIV, increasing preventative education in schools, and by ensuring ready access to PrEP and PEP for Michiganders who should be using those preventative drugs.
End the “tampon tax,” and make feminine hygiene products tax-exempt. On average, Michiganders who menstruate will spend $159 more per year on necessary hygiene products than those who do not and will never need to. Adding a sales tax on top of that, especially when other necessary food and drug products are not taxed, is the definition of inequity.
Install consumer protections against gender-based price descrimination in personal care products. Research shows that women pay an average of 13 percent more for personal care products in stores than men do, for substantially equal products that use gendered marketing as the main differentiator.
Epidemic Readiness
Avoid another readiness disaster in the next epidemic by maintaining a stockpile of medical supplies for health emergencies. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that the current federal government is not to be trusted with pandemic leadership, and when every state must fend for itself, we must prepare to go it alone.
Ensure access to localized emergency medical equipment supply chains. Relying on international supply chains to perform normally during a pandemic which thrusts the world into very anormal environments has proven to be an unsustainable business model (not to mention the human cost of this practice). No matter how globalized our economy gets, we must keep manufacturing here to ensure that access to sufficient PPE and other emergency equipment will not be hampered by a globally sensitive supply chain.
Support our most at-risk communities. Though Black Michiganders make up nearly 14 percent of our state’s population, they account for about 40 percent of the state’s coronavirus deaths. We must do systemically better and use the findings from the Michigan Coronavirus Task Force on Racial Disparities to better protect our communities.
Rural Healthcare
Reduce costs and focus on emergency and outpatient care in areas that need it most. Eighteen rural hospitals in Michigan are at high risk of closing. This is roughly one-in-four rural hospitals in our state, and it is the ninth highest percentage in the nation. Some rural hospitals can reduce their costs by converting to separate stand-alone emergency and outpatient centers. Not only is this much less expensive than running a full-scale hospital, but it also better serves the immediate needs of rural citizens.
Invest in telemedicine, especially for specialty services. A report from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention shows that people in rural America are 50 percent more likely to die from accidental causes due in large part to their distance from a healthcare provider. Through telemedicine technology, specialist doctors can consult through audio and video channels on common electronic devices with a rural outpatient center, and can even respond to real-time data. Through investment in Michigan’s broadband infrastructure system and ensuring that the internet is available for all Michiganders, this option is much more affordable for both patients and hospitals, further reducing costs and making rural healthcare more viable.
Empower and respect Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Assistants. Both of these roles require an extensive education, but often go underutilized due to the presence of a physician or a policy that requires a physician’s oversight. There are many services that NPs and PAs provide for a quality healthcare at a much lower cost, and they should be empowered to do so.