Granholm Says State Moving Forward to Reform Michigan Government

Statement

Hello, this is Governor Jennifer Granholm.

My 2010 agenda for Michigan focuses on continued economic diversification and job creation. That agenda also focuses on passing a balanced budget that further cuts state spending while protecting education. And finally, we are focused as well on transforming Michigan government through 29 specific reforms. We acted on two of those government reforms this week.

First, we've created, effective October 1, an independent Office of Health Services Inspector General. This new office will investigate fraud, waste and abuse in health services programs such as Medicaid.

State government has already been successful in fighting fraud and cutting waste in health services programs. But the current system would benefit from consolidating these responsibilities into one office and increasing focus on specific auditing and fraud prevention goals.

The inspector general will keep me and the director of the Department of Community Health apprised of its anti-fraud efforts. It will also advise us on how to prevent and better detect fraud, waste and abuse in our health services programs.

Another reform we implemented this week clears the way for local governments and other public entities, like school districts and universities, to participate in the state of Michigan health-care benefit plans offered to state employees.

We've recently negotiated a new state health-care benefit plan with a number of state employee groups. And this plan reduces the state's cost of providing health-care coverage to every newly hired state employee by 21.3 percent.

By offering other public employers and their employees the option of participating in this less expensive state health-care benefit plan, we're providing them an opportunity to reduce their health costs which will also benefit all Michigan taxpayers.

All the state's health-care benefit plans will be open to participation, including the state's PPO and HMO plans and prescription drug, dental and vision programs. One of the purposes of opening up this less expensive health-care plan is to take advantage of pooling: the more participants there are, the more we can lower the costs.

More details on my 29 government reforms can be found on the Web at www.michigan.gov/govin the section titled "Transforming Michigan Government." Some of the reforms can be implemented administratively, like the two this week. But others require working with employee groups or approval by the Legislature and Michigan voters.

We'll continue moving forward on reforming state government. These reforms, together with my proposed state budget for the 2011 fiscal year, will help Michigan transition to a new 21st century economy, 21st century state government, and 21st century tax structure.

Thank you for listening.

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