Governor Rick Snyder has signed the Healthy Michigan plan into law, making nearly half a million more residents eligible for the state's version of Medicaid expansion, to improve what he described as a combination of cost, quality and access.
In the first year, Healthy Michigan is anticipated to cover 320,000 Michiganders and eventually about 470,000 – most of them working but earning only around $15,000 a year.
Those covered by the plan in the state's landmark law, HB 4717, will be required to share in the premium costs, but they will also have incentives to take responsibility for their lifestyle choices and to maintain or improve their health.
Previously, those without health insurance often waited until their medical conditions were severe enough that they sought treatment in an emergency room, the most expensive way to get medical care, Snyder said in a news release Monday.
"We didn't do anything about it for many years," he said at the web broadcast signing ceremony. "Let's get them in medical homes instead of ERs."
Michigan is one of a short but growing list of Republican-controlled states to accept Medicaid expansion, including Arizona and North Dakota. Also on Monday, Republican Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett unveiled a new healthcare agenda with a proposal to expand Medicaid eligibility through private health plans, if the federal government is open to new cost-sharing and work requirements.
Most Republican-led states have decided against expanding Medicaid, despite the federal government paying for the first three years in its entirety and then over the next several years reducing that to 90 percent of the cost. Michigan still needs a waiver from the U.S. Health and Human Services Department for its reforms in expanding Medicaid.
Michigan's hospitals bear more than $880 million in uncompensated costs every year, which Snyder said are passed along to individuals and businesses through higher health care premiums. Healthy Michigan will help alleviate hundreds of millions of those costs annually, he said.
"Health care is an issue that prompts strong opinions, and debate over this plan was thoughtful, and, at times, intense," Snyder said, adding at the broadcast of the bill signing that it was hard work. "But in the end, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle came together on an improved plan."