Lansing Lines is presented in cooperation with MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.
Report On Psychiatric Bed Shortage To Come
In a House committee’s final hearing on the psychiatric bed shortage, Chair Matthew Bierlein (R-Vassar) said the House Oversight Subcommittee on Public Health and Food Security will be compiling a comprehensive report on what they’ve learned and will be recommending legislation based on that.
Bierlein said his office fully intends to continue meeting and collaborating to produce a report based on committee testimony and turn that into legislative recommendations.
One such suggestion would be to invest money in psychiatric beds to reduce the strain on jails, emergency rooms and local law enforcement, which is caused by only 32 adult inpatient psychiatric beds available north of Grand Rapids.
Antonietta (Toni) Petrella-Stanfield, co-founder of Before, During and After Incarceration, said her son died by suicide six years ago after 15 years of struggling to manage a bipolar diagnosis, during which he was hospitalized 15 times for a total of 40 days. He was arrested five times during psychotic episodes for a total of 480 days in jail.
Stanfield said this places a disproportionate burden on county jails.
“Jails are not hospitals. And correctional staff are not mental health clinicians,” Steinfield said.
Forty percent of the Grand Traverse jail population is prescribed psychotropic medication, Steinfield cited, which she said shows the level of unmet need.
“Our jails have become the de facto psychiatric holding facilities, a role that they were never designed or trained to fulfill. We must ask, is this the best we can offer our family members who suffer from a mental illness?” Stanfield said.
Proper inpatient care can interrupt the cycle of arrest, incarceration and release that people with untreated mental illness face.
In addition to funding psychiatric care, Stanfield recommended the development of collaborative models between mental health agencies and jails to connect those in crisis to mental health professionals rather than incarceration, and explore pilot programs that bring stabilization units adjacent to correctional facilities.
“Every individual with a mental illness deserves access to appropriate care, not a jail cell. Every correctional officer deserves to work in an environment that does not require them to act as the de facto psychiatric nurse, and every county deserves the resources to meet its legally mandated mental health responsibilities,” Stanfield said.
Health Official Defends Not Investigating SIDS Cases
A state official who oversees the investigation of child deaths told a House committee today that his unit doesn’t look into sudden infant death cases – as was suggested by the Auditor General – because there’s little to be gained by it.
The House Child Welfare Oversight Committee questioned the head of children’s welfare about an audit from April that found 135 children’s deaths were not properly evaluated.
But Children’s Service Administration Senior Deputy Director Demetrius Starling said the Office of Family Advocate did not investigate 150 child deaths in the Michigan Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System between Jan. 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024, because the coroner didn’t find the child was abused or neglected.
“We, unfortunately, in Michigan, have a lot of positional facilitation deaths – safe sleep – and as a result of those complaints being investigated by either or in tandem with law enforcement and also getting the medical report from the coroner’s office, is not deemed child abuse or neglect. These are unfortunate and traumatic incidents that happen at way too high of a rate,” Starling said.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development defines these cases as Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths (SUIDs), which includes sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), accidental suffocation and strangulation in bed, and unknown causes.
Starling said the cases aren’t investigated because they had already been determined through a law enforcement investigation and child protective services.
He said it isn’t worth retraumatizing the parents for a third time for an investigation by the Office of Family Advocate, which he said is separate from Child Protective Services.
“There isn’t a lot that you can glean from reviewing all safe sleep deaths. These are very unfortunate, traumatic situations that occur,” he said.
Michigan Voters Overwhelmingly Back Dental Care for Low-Income Adults
A new statewide poll finds that most Michigan voters support programs offering dental care to low-income adults.
The survey shows 81 percent of respondents favor keeping the state’s adult dental program, which helps seniors, veterans and other low-income Michiganders.
Support for the program spans across party lines. Democrats, Republicans and Independents all showed strong backing for continuing dental benefits for those in need.
The poll was conducted by EPIC/MRA through live interviews with 600 active and likely voters for the November 2026 election.
Interviews took place from June 20 to June 26. The survey was commissioned by Delta Dental, which is concerned House Republicans are considering reducing or ending treatment options in the adult dental program as they debate the state budget.
“Elected officials and policymakers should take note that the overwhelming majority of voters want to protect this program and clearly view dental care for low-income adults as a necessity that should be prioritized in the state budget,” said Bernie Porn, president of EPIC/MRA.
“It’s clear from this research that voters want to preserve and protect the current program for adult dental care and not change course, and that’s true regardless of where you live, how old you are, your gender or your political affiliation. This finding is an important data point as policymakers grapple with state budget negotiations in the days ahead,” he added.
Orgs Will Have To Hire New Staff For Medicaid Work Mandates, Says One Health System
(FLINT) – Healthcare organizations will have to hire new staff specifically to handle new work requirements and six-month eligibility check-ins for Medicaid, says Dan RUSSEL, the head of Genesee Health System.
“I would just say, in the name of government efficiency, this is not that,” Russel said, referencing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) that President Donald Trump signed this month. “We can’t go to a case manager or to a nurse and say, ‘Hey, in addition to all the rest of your stuff, don’t forget to make sure that your patients are working, or they’re getting their volunteer activities in.’ So it’s just going to add…that much more bureaucracy and work to an already over-stressed system.”
The Genesee Health System (GHS) provides substance-use treatment and behavioral health care. It was the site of a recent press conference by U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City), who won her election last fall by 28,173 votes in what was tagged as one of Michigan’s most competitive races.
Her press conference featured Russel, has worked at GHS for 26 years, as well as American Medical Association (AMA) President Dr. Bobby Mukkamala and Allison Harris, a Flint resident overseeing sterile services at a local trauma center.
While her own career deals with Medicaid, Harris explained that Medicaid is also used to “fill in the gaps” her employer-provided insurance can’t absorb for her 18-year-old daughter, Kendall Williams. Her daughter, who was present today, is undergoing chemotherapy for stage 4 cancer.
Williams has Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer that starts in the immune system’s white blood cells.
“Kendall has had complications due to her chemo. She has been needing additional therapy for speech and physical health as well, and with the help of Medicaid, we’ve been able to afford all of those things,” Harris said. “I just don’t know what we would do if we would lose that help. It could affect my employment. It could affect Kendall’s care.”
The new Medicaid reforms within the OBBBA include requiring, starting after 2026, childless adults not considered “medically frail” or disabled to work at least 80 hours monthly. Community service or career education programs would count as work.
For example, outside of today’s press conference, MIRS spoke with Sen. Joseph Bellino Jr. (R-Monroe), who worked for the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Detroit providing utility, housing and food assistance. He thinks after people read the federal bill, Democrats won’t be able to keep the rhetoric up about people dying.
“If you can get $14.75 an hour (40-hour work-week) in benefits, why work?” Bellino said via text. “Taking classes, insured. Giving time to a nonprofit, insured. Have young ones, insured. Taking care of older folks, insured…but with Bridge cards, subsidies for rent, electricity, phones, free, free (and) free you can see why we are in the pickle we are in.”
States would be responsible for re-determining eligibility at least every six months. For long-term care providers accepting patients before they’re officially enrolled, Medicaid will reimburse them for up to one month prior to their enrollment, instead of today’s three-month retroactive standard.
As the OBBBA looks to downsize federal spending on Medicaid by $1 trillion over the next decade, opponents to the act worry its administrative updates will result in loss of enrollees and services far beyond its intentions to block people from misusing the system.
“I have a liberal arts degree, so math isn’t my strong suit. But let me tell you, the math doesn’t add up. There is no data that shows you can get to a trillion dollars of cuts with waste, fraud and abuse,” McDonald Rivet said. “The idea that…these cuts are only going to affect people who are committing fraud or who are in the country illegally, is just a heads out lie.”
Supporters of the OBBBA make the case that it offers numerous opt-out windows to the new work mandates, and that the act could promote workforce development. However, McDonald Rivet projects people missing deadlines and misunderstanding forms that will determine their access to care.
When asked if today’s technology can make determining someone’s Medicaid eligibility simpler and a faster process, McDonald Rivet explained the federal government is “not investing a penny” in technologies that make Medicaid easier to navigate.
“Innovations in technology require investment. They require the smartest minds coming together to actually implement system-wide technology upgrades,” she said. “The possibility of that happening in an environment where the federal government is being stripped of all expertise and tenure…is next to nothing.”
Mukkamala is an ear, nose and throat doctor in Flint Township, and one-third of his practice is seeing local Medicaid recipients. He said he sees people with stage 1 cancer in their mouth all the time.
Upon the initial visit, Mukkamala explained it’s “a small thing” he can remove with a 90 percent cure rate.
“But what’s going to happen when that patient loses insurance? Inevitably, people are going to be waiting at home…(saying) ‘I don’t have insurance. I don’t really want to go in. I’m not sure what that’s going to cost,'” he said. “Then it’s going to end up being a stage 4 cancer, where that survival drops to 50 percent and it’s not just taking something out in my office. It might bleed like crazy and take them to the emergency department.”
‘I Vaccinate’ Campaign Says Avoid National Confusion, Get Vaxxed Before School Starts
Dr. Pamela Rockwell, a family medicine provider, wants Michigan parents to think about vaccines before school starts despite any confusion and debates surrounding the federal government, especially as the state faces the current measles outbreak.
“This is a disease that in the year 2000 was declared eliminated from the United States,” said Rockwell, a University of Michigan clinical professor. “Measles is on the rise. It can be quite dangerous for kids, pregnant moms and adults to get measles, and there have been three confirmed deaths in the U.S. so far from measles this year.”
In late May, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary – instructed that healthy pregnant women and children no longer be advised to receive COVID-19 vaccines.
National health groups like the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America filed a lawsuit earlier this month, looking to reverse the federal decision. In the lawsuit, the organizations criticized Kennedy’s responses to the measles outbreak that is now present in 38 states as of July 2, referencing his March comments that “good nutrition remains a best defense against most chronic and infectious illnesses” and that the “decision to vaccinate is a personal one.”
Also in the lawsuit, they noted Kennedy’s decision to rescind about $11 billion in public health funds that states and local governments were utilizing to support their immunization infrastructure.
This morning, Rockwell was one of the speakers in a presentation by the “Michigan I Vaccinate Campaign,” a public-private partnership offering vaccine information to parents. It spotlighted how the state has reported 855 cases of pertussis, or whooping cough, this year, up from 110 reported cases in 2023.
Meanwhile, there are 18 confirmed cases of measles, with the disease present in Michigan for the first time since 2019.
“I want to say this in a way that doesn’t get me in too much trouble, but misinformation is wildly disseminated, not only on social media, but unfortunately, now, by top government officials,” Rockwell said. “To know how safe (vaccines) are, and what they do to prevent disease or just prevent hospitalization…having to go to the hospital if you’re sick, and what it does if it’s a child (now) out of school…if one were to be able to understand that information, I cannot foresee why they wouldn’t choose to vaccinate their children when you have to weigh risks and benefits.”
The event featured Ryan Malosh, the immunization division director in Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). He noted that between 2019 and now, young Michiganders covered by the routine childhood immunization series dipped from around 75 percent to about 70 percent.
He added that among the youths this year who reportedly caught the whooping cough, 152 of them were under 2 years old and 27 of them were hospitalized (representing 18 percent of cases).
Seventy-one percent of children 18 to 35 months old in Michigan were vaccinated for whooping cough, and Malosh said “there’s some work that we could do to have better coverage in that age group.”
For 19 to 35-month-old children vaccinated for measles, the coverage is about 79 percent.
“You really need a vaccine coverage or an immunity coverage of about 95 percent in a given population in order to prevent an outbreak, so we are well below that threshold,” Malosh said about measles.
In areas where cases of measles are present, Malosh said the obvious common thread is the low levels of vaccination, which he described as the predominant factor “by far.”
Another one of this morning’s speakers was Veronica McNally, the director of trial advocacy at Michigan State University. Outside of her career with MSU, she’s the founder of the “I Vaccinate” campaign.
She became an activist for vaccine education after the 2012 death of her 12-week-old daughter, Francesca Marie. She died of whooping cough, which was a disease she was too young to begin getting vaccinated for.
The vaccine for DTaP – Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis – is administered as a five-dose series usually given when a child reaches 2 months old, 4 months old, 6 months old, sometime between 15 and 18 months old and between 4 and 6 years old.
“Infants under 6 months of age who get whooping cough are likely to be hospitalized and to have a very poor outcome from whooping cough,” McNally said. “So it’s important to make sure that individuals who are going to be around the infant are vaccinated against whooping cough.”