Insights for action
Blurring the Lines
Have you noticed how institutional lines are being blurred? I see it in news headlines, and in Michigan bills as I summarize them for the MHF Guide to State Health Policy. Institutions – many of them – have strayed from their core purpose. This breaks down public...
Guest on the Nurses Saving Nurses Podcast
I was a guest this Tuesday on the Nurses Saving Nurses Podcast. The interview with Nathan Baar, nurse CEO, ranged from drug prices to health policy activism. Many experts have documented healthcare shortages for decades, but are they completely real? If you've ever...
Healthcare on Ice
Today, Michigan is recovering from an ice storm. Health policy committees are canceled, so we have a minute to think about how Lansing “iced” us with inflation and subsidies last term. State legislators helped land us here – and they can help get us out. Inflation...
Michigan House: What you need to know
The Legislature has begun another term, and today I have some information about the Michigan House Health Policy Committee. Today's 10:30 am agenda lists presentations from: School-Community Health Alliance of Michigan Michigan Public Health Institute Health Care...
State Exchange is about Monopoly Control
Monopoly Control It’s been a busy week for Michigan insurance regulators. It’s all good if you like monopoly control. I don’t. Monopoly decreases choice where we live and work. It concentrates power at the top. It creates complacency and saps incentive to serve....
5 Things to know about ESG in Michigan Healthcare
ESG investing is hotly contested in national headlines, making me wonder how deeply it runs in Michigan health policy. What is ESG? ESG stands for Environmental, Social, and Governance, as ideological investment strategies. It is the business and finance corollary...
Five Reasons Health Professionals Should Care about State Health Policy
Life as a healthcare professional is based on certain ideals. Here I list five reasons professionals should care about state health policy. Professionals act with good reasons Few can be proud of a clinical decision based on "the state said so." On the contrary,...
SDOH: What you need to know
You know how government gives with one hand, but always takes with the other? Apparently Michigan public health’s three-year spectacle of incompetence failed to drive in the lesson, because instead of slinking away into oblivion, they’re doubling down. The latest...
Of Castles and Healthcare Licenses
Healthcare calls for human relationship and innovation. Instead, Lansing is presents us with standardization and state control, often through healthcare licenses. Michigan bills presented in 2021-22 are likely to return in 2023. They would create new licenses for...
Individual Healthcare Rights and National Events
Your individual healthcare rights are in the cross-hairs of current events. Knowing the implications of national health policy headlines for your rights in Michigan can empower you to defend them. Call it a bird's-eye view, or a serious game of chess. Here's a...
Roadmap to Raising Michigan’s Healthcare Freedom Scores: 1
The Roadmap to raising healthcare freedom scores identifies Michigan's top state health policy barriers to healthcare freedom. You can download it here, along with the MHF Report Cards for 2020 and 2022. Roadmap articles explain these issues, their significance to...
Michigan Cues up More License Barriers to Care
Despite many commonsense reasons to stop, the Michigan legislature continues to create new healthcare license laws. Since January, 2021, legislators have advanced forty-three bills regarding health occupation licenses. Most tweak existing license laws - creating...
Implicit Bias Training: Michigan’s Immoral Tyranny of Healthcare
Healthcare professionals across Michigan fell under controversial state implicit bias training rules this week. Like hundreds of thousands of others licensed in healthcare, I received an email from the State of Michigan. Dear Licensee – The Bureau of Professional...
This Myth Supports Healthcare Tyranny
One of the strongest chains of healthcare tyranny is an insidious myth. This myth is so ingrained in American culture, we probably aren’t even aware of it. However, it’s easy to identify – and breaking free opens up a whole new field of healthcare freedom defense....
Join MHF for a Sneak Peek at ALL THE BILLS
So. Many. Bills. What do "all the bills" have to do with your healthcare freedom issue? Amid widespread healthcare malfunctions, Michigan is well into the subsidy phase of Ronald Reagan's famous description of government. Shortages, powerful healthcare industries,...
Is MDHHS Using Health Policy for a Political Campaign? Benton Harbor Water Part 2
As we saw last week, MDHHS hasn't reported unusual numbers of high blood lead levels in the city on the Lake. By the department's own numbers, other cities in Michigan have as many case numbers or more. This week, the MDHHS count of Benton Harbor press releases...
Why is MDHHS obsessed with Benton Harbor Water? Part 1
If the volume of press releases is any indication, the State of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) is extremely interested in City of Benton Harbor water. Benton Harbor, located in Berrien County on the southern curve of Lake Michigan, has...
Michigan Should Repeal CON in 2022
Certificate of Need (CON) repeal is long overdue in Michigan. The legislature has reform bills in the pipeline. Can we make it happen in 2022? Handicapped, young, and suffering severe back pain, a Michigan girl I know was put onto a 6-week MRI waiting list some...
Federalism: Taking Out Local Barriers to Healthcare Freedom
Taking out local barriers is key to retaking local healthcare freedom, and we can leverage practical Federalism to do so. Michigan well remembers the slow retreat of COVID mandates. In the face of public opposition, Executive Orders became MDHHS orders, which...
What is Direct Primary Care?
Direct Primary Care (DPC) is an affordable model of self-pay care that increasingly appeals to both patients and physicians. DPC fits well with health sharing membership and good medication shopping skills to provide maximum healthcare savings. By definition, DPC...
How to talk to your hospital about Ivermectin
A growing number of concerned Americans are demanding hospital Ivermectin treatment for COVID. This week, a Michigan activist contacted me about a formal request letter to their local hospital. This is my response. Ivermectin's strength: preventive and early...
Ask These 5 Questions if Your Family is Hospitalised for COVID
COVID communication is fraught, especially when a family member is very ill. At such a time, only one thing matters: patient recovery. Asking these questions can enable patient and family conversations with hospital staff to focus on that goal. As COVID diminishes,...
Practical Pharmacy Tips
He that pays the piper at the pharmacy… This story from my days working the Nurse Call Line shows where we've gone wrong with buying medication. The Call: “I took my prescription to the pharmacy today because I had to be somewhere else after my visit on Friday. The...
MDHHS Part 3: Dependency
When COVID hit, Michigan residents set about home gardening in record numbers. Apparently competing with people's innate drive for food independence, Governor Whitmer shut down plant and seed sales, and the Michigan Department of Heath and Human Services (MDHHS)...
How Big is MDHHS? Part 1
Michigan residents are aware of Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) through COVID-19 closures, mandates, and vaccination. However, the department runs many additional programs as well. MDHHS denied Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services' ...
Michigan’s 2021 Heroes of Healthcare Freedom
The people of Michigan owe special thanks to healthcare heroes who defended our freedom in 2021. Healthcare professionals prefer to save lives. These Michigan heroes didn’t set out to be freedom activists when vaccine mandates threatened their jobs. Probably, few...
Act on Federal Vaccine Mandates: 7 Things to Know
All of us in Michigan have reason to act against federal vaccine mandates. They attack the heart and conscience of healthcare. Each deadline disrupts more people's lives, forcing them to choose between their own health decision and their livelihood caring for...
Insights & Action: Today’s Clash of Worldviews in Lansing Health Policy
Good morning! I'd like to present a contrast to you today. Two worldviews are battling for control of healthcare. One perspective values each individual life as a gift from God. Humans are born with equal inherent worth. Law protects God-given individual rights and...
Health Policy Foundations, Pt 1
BLOG Where Did we Go Wrong? Put aside the politics, the financial interests, and the public manipulation for a moment. In a constitutional America hit by an unknown infectious disease, what would health policy look like? With limited government, health policy...
What Are the Sharing Organizations?
Sharing organizations crept slowly into the public consciousness for a few decades, but with the effects of the ACA they are exploding in membership, talk radio coverage, and innovation.
Michigan Increasing Tax on Nurses
Increasing the price nurses must pay to work in Michigan is set to impact healthcare consumers and professionals as the Michigan House Health Policy Committee hears testimony on HB 5400, “Expand Scope of Practice for Nurses” on Tuesday, September 20.
Lansing Battles over Biologics
Ever notice how two people can read the same words and come away with opposite meanings? I watched that spring to life in the House Health Policy Committee on Tuesday, October 27, in a dispute over medications.
Move the Dial
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