Michigan’s Supplemental on Workforce

​Political News by McLaren’s Government Relations Team

Welcome back to Hospital & Politics. Periodically, your Government Relations team will provide updates regarding Lansing and Washington D.C. hospital related news. In this issue our focus is on the health care supplemental that was signed into law by Governor Whitmer this March.

​As of current, the department is still shifting through getting funds out the door. However, we look forward to seeing the benefits this supplemental has for our hospital system dealing with the workforce shortage.

This Democratic-led legislature has been blazing through its priorities in the last three months and one of the first bills it completed was a supplemental with numerous funding from workforce issues to environmental concerns, to transportation needs. The budget work begins now and while we are educating and advocating for our specific McLaren needs, I think it is important to know that this legislature is working at a different pace than the previous few legislatures. The budget is behind by approximately two weeks than last term’s budget process; however, the legislature is talking about another supplemental (yes, another one) before the budget is completed (anywhere generally from June through September). This deviates a great deal from what we typically see, which has kept your government relations team on its toes when it comes to strategy. Overall, we are thankful for the funding that was included in this first supplemental for us and we are excited to see how the budget and the next supplemental fair out for not only our hospital system, but our hospital industry as a whole. 
​
As the year goes on, some articles will be specifically focused on one piece of policy or one concept of political hospital news. If you would like to see anything specific in these newsletters, please do

---

Michigan’s First 2023 Supplemental

The Michigan Health & Hospital Association, along with your government affairs team, was able to secure funding in the first supplemental of the term for our healthcare worker shortage. This supplemental was a total of $1.3 billion, with $828.6 million containing General Fund. I’m going to explain a bit more about non-healthcare related items with this supplemental because it is important to understand the direction this legislature is headed towards. 

HealthCare Shortage Assistance
The legislature and Governor approved $75M for hospitals to recruit, retain, and train health care employees. This is a great leap for Michigan’s hospital systems in attacking the healthcare shortage. In addition to meeting the necessary federal requirements, the only state restriction put on this section was that none of the funding can be used on healthcare investments that occurred before December 1, 2021. 
​
Data from our Michigan Hospital Association in March 2023 show there are more than 27,000 open positions in hospitals across the state. There are nearly 8,500 nursing positions open, with 4,700 technician, 3,000 clinical assistant, and 1,700 operational support jobs also open. This monetary aid will help recruit in the short term while keeping healthcare workers in the long run. Hospitals can anticipate this funding sometime before June and it will be delivered by the MHA with a similar formula as to the last bucket of workforce money.

Nursing Home Shortage & Medicaid Uplift
Similar to our hospital funding, long-term care facilities received $67 million from federal Coronavirus funds for retention, recruitment, training, or career development. Nursing homes and nonprofit health care training organizations can apply for the funds to help stabilize workforce in those settings. Additionally, $63.5 million was included to increase Medicaid interim rates to nursing home providers starting January 1, 2023. We are hopeful there will be some rate increases in services provided by our hospital systems in the FY 24 budget.

Economic Development
While I like to think our hospital workforce funding is what sparked this supplemental, the truth of the matter is the Governor needed to utilize the Michigan Strategic Fund to attract a 2,500-job battery plant to Marshall. Approximately $330 million will be spent on infrastructure for the project and a little less than $300 million will be provided for land acquisition and development of the site. Further, $173 million was put in the Strategic Outreach and Attraction Reserve Fund for future projects. 

Lastly, $1million was appropriated to create the Michigan Regional Resiliency Program that would bring federal dollars into Michigan to support economic development and climate change. 

Safety & Assistance
The legislature also spent numerous ARPA funds on keeping communities and individuals safe. $10.8 million was expended to establish an Office of Community Violence Intervention Services. Further, money will be spent for community-based organizations to provide community violence intervention services. In addition to keeping people safe, $750,000 went towards the SSG Parker Gordon Fox Federal Grant Program, which assists entities that provide military personnel with suicide prevention services.