House Govt Ops June 2026: Robert Gordon COVID severance pay bill, executive branch transparency

Back Thursday, plus SNAP/EBT card security - this bill hot off the presses.

Thursday, June 18, 2026      9:00 AM

AGENDA

HB 5145 (Rep. Woolford)
Human services: food assistance; documentation requirements for certain assistance programs; provide for.

HB 5713 (Rep. Martin)
Holidays: other; "Patriots' Day"; designate as April 19 of each year.

HB 5283 (Rep. Frisbie)
State: symbol; Honor and Remember flag; designate as the official state symbol of remembrance of fallen military members.

HB 6009 (Rep. Roth)
Public employees and officers: compensation and benefits; severance pay for executive and legislative branch employees and officers; limit, and require reporting if greater than a certain amount.

OR ANY BUSINESS PROPERLY BEFORE THIS COMMITTEE

Speaker Matt Hall and three other House Republicans have introduced a four bill package to punish anti-competitive hospital practices and stifle price increases. These bills were referred to the House Committee on Government Operations yesterday.  The core bills of the package, HB 6116 through HB 6118, are tie barred.  HB 6119, the physician non-compete agreement bill, is not:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/business/2026/06/19/michigan-hospital-mergers-pricing/90603333007/

https://legislature.mi.gov/Home/GetObject?objectName=2026-HB-6116

https://legislature.mi.gov/Home/GetObject?objectName=2026-HB-6117

https://legislature.mi.gov/Home/GetObject?objectName=2026-HB-6118

https://legislature.mi.gov/Home/GetObject?objectName=2026-HB-6119

House GOP hospital review plan to mandate lower costs, limit mergers
By Beth LeBlanc - June 19, 2026

Lansing — Michigan House Republicans introduced legislation Thursday to create a hospital cost review board with regulatory powers over nonprofit hospital pricing, acquisitions and mergers.

The four-bill package would require the board to approve any cost increases and limit those increases to no more than the rate of inflation. Hospitals seeking to acquire or merge with another facility also would face mandated cost reductions and limits on market share.

Republican House Speaker Matt Hall told reporters the legislation is meant to address increases in patient costs, even as hospitals complain of budget constraints while paying more and more to their CEOs.

"We're watching them acquire other systems, we're watching them build new buildings, we're watching all of their executives' pay go up, considerably," the Richland Township Republican told reporters Thursday.

Under the legislation, Hall said, the review board would examine a variety of factors while evaluating a rate increase request — items such as patient costs, hospital expenditures and revenue, assets and liabilities, labor and Medicare costs, financial statements and the value of a nonprofit hospital's tax exemption. The legislation appears to apply only to nonprofit hospitals, such as the Corewell and Henry Ford hospital systems, and would exclude for-profit hospital systems, such as the Detroit Medical Center.

The Michigan Health and Hospital Association on Thursday said it is examining the proposal, but warned that similar measures in other states have resulted in higher costs.

"Providing accessible, affordable health care remains the top priority for Michigan hospitals," said MHA CEO Brian Peters. "However, proposals that introduce additional administrative burdens and arbitrary government price controls would exacerbate the affordability challenges they seek to address."

The Michigan Health Purchasers Coalition, a group advocating for changes to hospital pricing and transparency, said it looked forward to reviewing the bills.

"The House package announced today by Speaker Hall is a bold solution taking aim at one of the biggest drivers of the affordability crisis — hospital prices," said Bret Jackson, president of the coalition.

Hall likened the proposal to a similar approach taken by the state of Indiana and defended it as a necessary government intervention to rein in costs.

"There's so much government intervention in health care that the free market doesn't work," Hall said. "What I've seen is the only way to solve this problem is to put in place some effort to incentivize the hospitals to lower the costs."

The legislation was sponsored by Hall and Republican state Reps. Jay DeBoyer of Clay Township, Joe Aragona of Clinton Township and Mike Harris of Waterford Township.

Under the legislation, nonprofit hospitals must lower costs by 10% within two weeks of the act becoming law. It also subjects hospital acquisitions and mergers to board review and requires any consolidation to result in at least 2% decrease in costs.

The legislation prohibits mergers or acquisitions if they result in a consolidated bed count of more than 8% of all beds in the state or 15% of all beds in a prosperity region; or a consolidated market share of more than 3% of the state's total market share or 15% of the prosperity region's market share.

"There's like three or four big systems now and they're squeezing everybody else out and that was supposed to lower costs," Hall said, while describing the market share limits. "But all of the expert studies are saying it's leading to a dramatic increase in costs."

The legislation also bars hospitals with more than $2 billion in annual revenue from requiring physicians to sign non-compete agreements.

The review board, which would be made up of five appointees, could also provide grants to certain hospitals experiencing consistent losses, with isolated or rural hospitals given priority, from a fund made up of assessments on regulated hospitals.

The board members, appointed by the governor, would need to have some health care background, would serve four-year terms and would be picked from recommendations from the Senate and House leaders, and the governor.

@10x25mm the number of hospital funding streams is exceeded only by their opacity. 

Sometimes I think this lack of direct pay is the primary reason for rising costs, and diminishing system devotion to patient interests. Deal with that, and the need for extra oversight boards goes away.

And here they are on Thursday's agenda.

Thursday, June 25, 2026    9:00 AM

AGENDA

HB 6116 (Rep. Hall)
Health facilities: hospitals; hospital cost review board act; establish.

HB 6117 (Rep. Harris)
Health facilities: hospitals; health care cost reduction fund; create.

HB 6118 (Rep. DeBoyer)
Health facilities: other; certain acquisitions and mergers involving a health facility or agency; regulate.

HB 6119 (Rep. Aragona)
Labor: fair employment practices; certain noncompete agreements for physicians; prohibit.

OR ANY BUSINESS PROPERLY BEFORE THIS COMMITTEE

Michigan Advance reports on today's House Government Operations Committee hearing:

https://michiganadvance.com/2026/06/25/source-of-rising-health-costs-debated-as-michigan-house-committee-weighs-hospital-oversight-bills/

Source of rising health costs debated as Michigan House committee weighs hospital oversight bills
By Kyle Davidson - June 25, 2026

Members of the Michigan House Government Operations Committee took a hard look at a package of bills championed by Speaker Matt Hall, which if passed, would scrutinize rising health costs by creating a board to review the finances of Michigan hospitals.

Put forth by Hall, of Richland Township, and Reps. Mike Harris (R-Waterford), Jay DeBoyer (R- Clay Township) and Joe Aragona (R-Clinton Township), House Bills 6116–6119 would create a five-member Hospital Cost Review Board to oversee nonprofit hospitals’ budgets and spending.

“If labor costs have risen, hospitals should be able to demonstrate that,” Harris told committee members on Thursday. “If pharmaceutical costs, medical equipment or other operating expenses increased, they should be able to demonstrate that as well. What the patient deserves is confidence that higher prices are tied to higher costs, not simply passed on because they can.”

While insurance companies cannot simply raise their premiums without regulatory review, this proposed board would apply the same principle to nonprofit hospitals, Harris explained.

Under the legislation, the board’s five members would be appointed by the governor and the majority and minority leaders in each chamber of the Michigan Legislature, with expertise in health care, health policy, business, finance or accounting.

As part of its duties, the board would meet with nonprofit hospitals to discuss their budgets and would analyze a host of information on their operations, utilizations and any tax exemptions the facility receives.

Among the required information hospitals would need to submit each year, they can provide explanations on how increased costs on drugs and medical devices, labor cost or any other relevant factors led to higher hospital charges.

House Bill 6116 also sets standards for price increases, requiring hospitals to justify price increases for health services while capping those increases at the rate of inflation.

If the bills are signed by the governor, hospitals would have 14 days to reduce the total cost of services covered by insurance by 10%.

They would also bar health networks from moving forward with acquisitions or mergers without the board’s approval, and limit employee noncompete agreements so they can only be applied between large hospital systems.

The policies would also create a healthcare cost grant program, intended to support rural hospitals operating at a loss of at least 3% for three consecutive years, which would be funded by fines collected from hospitals that do not comply with the law, and fees collected as part of the consolidation process.

“I recognize this legislation asks significant questions of our healthcare system,” Harris said. “It should. Healthcare is one of the largest expenses facing Michigan families, employers, and taxpayers alike. We owe it to the people that we represent to examine whether that system is delivering the transparency, competition and the accountability that they deserve.”

Testifying before the committee, Adam Carlson, the senior vice president of advocacy for the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, told members that health costs are tied to several factors, including hospitals, insurance companies, the pharmaceuticals industry and clinicians.

However, Carlson said the package only targets one of those areas, and that it places arbitrary conditions on how these facilities provide care.

Hospitals are facing rapidly rising costs, Carlson said, pointing to pharmaceutical prices as the leading driver.

While there are 27 hospitals in the state operating with negative margins, these bills would immediately push an additional 27 hospitals into the red, Carlson said, pointing to the 10% price cut, restrictions keeping prices at or below the rate of inflation and required cost benchmarks within the bills as a serious threat.

If passed as is, Michigan hospitals can expect to see $2.3 billion in losses, with 21,600 full-time hospital workforce jobs lost statewide, Carlson said.

“I want to be very clear about this, because this isn’t just individuals who are sitting around who lose their jobs, these job loss numbers represent service line reductions,” Carlson said. “It represents the closure of urban units, the closure of behavioral health units and potentially the closure of hospitals.”

For the association’s rural members who are operating on unsustainable margins their best options are to either convert to a for-profit model, or sell to private equity, which will only accelerate the growth of private equity in healthcare, Carlson said.

“I don’t think that was the goal of the bills, but that’s the practical implication of what’s going to happen under this legislation,” he said.

However, Bret Jackson of the Michigan Health Purchasers Coalition argued hospitals have their own role in the rising costs of healthcare.

“The cost of hospital care has become one of the biggest drivers of rising health insurance premiums, high out-of-pocket costs, and wage pressure for employees throughout our state,” Jackson said.

Jackson pointed to a report from his organization, which found the average hospital operating profit margin among Michigan hospitals was 16% in 2024, up from 12% in 2023. According to the report, 80% of Michigan hospitals operate as nonprofits.

“Employers are struggling to provide quality health benefits to their employees,” Jackson said. “Every single dollar that goes towards unnecessary high hospital prices and fees is a dollar that cannot be used for employee wages, hiring, retirement benefits or business growth. For many Michigan families, it means higher deductibles, delayed care and increased medical debt.”

The committee adjourned without voting on the bills.

The noncompetes in healthcare are ridiculous.

So are all the mergers and acquisitions. (Although more state regulation hardly gets at root causes.)

As for the other two bills, my mother taught me that if one can't say anything nice, one shouldn't say anything at all.