LANSING — This week, the House Appropriations Committee took testimony on a bill that would rob nearly one million Michiganders of their Medicaid coverage. In response, state Rep. David LaGrand (D-Grand Rapids) issued the following statement:
“As a small business-owner and a legislator, I also know that the best way to attract the best workers is to offer competitive wages with good benefits, not to take away someone’s health care. Senate Bill 897 masquerades as a measure that provides ‘work with dignity’ to people who need health care, but the thinking is backward. People need to be healthy to work. This bill mandates that people work in order to stay healthy. There is no way I can support it in good conscience. Michigan needs good jobs with wages and benefits that enable workers to support their families, not bad jobs that people must be forced by the state to take under threat of losing their health care.”