Washington D.C. – Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-MI) today authored an open letter to Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm regarding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
The following is the full text of the letter:
The Honorable Jennifer M. Granholm
Governor, State of Michigan
P.O. Box 30013
Lansing, Michigan 48909
Dear Governor Granholm;
Given your recent statements regarding the S-CHIP [MI-CHILD in our home state], I need a clarification of your position on the following:
1. According to the State of Michigan’s own budget projections as submitted to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, in 2008 you will be spending 71.6% of Michigan kids’ S-CHIP funding on childless adults. Is this true? (If so, it makes Michigan number one in the country.)
2. According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2006 approximately 46% of all Michigan S-CHIP enrollees were adults – not kids. Is this true? If so, will this percentage of adults increase under the proposed S-CHIP expansion?
3. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposed S-CHIP bill’s new sin-tax on tobacco requires at least 22 million new smokers to fund its promised expansion. How many new smokers do you believe Michigan is going to contribute to this number, and how are you going to encourage non-smoking Michiganders to “pick the habit?” (For the record: I, at least, am paying my fair share of tobacco taxes “for the kids.”)
4. Speaking of sin taxes, if the recent S-CHIP proposal’s tobacco tax proves insufficient to fund an expanded program, do you support raising other federal and/or state taxes to fund it? (I am, in fairness, not assuming that, because your Michigan tobacco tax preceded your recent state income tax hike on working families, you will necessarily support similar federal tax hikes on working families.)
5. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the proposed S-CHIP expansion will allow illegal immigrants to enroll in the program and, by 2012, cost federal and state taxpayers $6.5 billion dollars. Do you approve of federal and/or state taxpayers’ money being spent on illegal immigrants? If yes, since states must put up a matching share under the current and the proposed S-CHIP program, how much of our recently hiked state income taxes are you going to give to adult illegal immigrants?
6. Do you agree reasonable people acting in good faith differ over means and still support a common goal for the common good?
7. Hey, will you reconsider your recent state income tax hike? (It was worth a shot…)
As ever, I look forward to your input on this important issue, although it would admittedly be nicer through a phone call than press accounts; and, despite some people’s oratorical pyrotechnics launched from the partisan darkness, I remain dedicated to working with all stake-holders to ensure poor kids get medical care and all kids inherit the best health care system in the world.
Respectfully,
Thaddeus McCotter
U.S. Representative
Michigan’s Congressional 11th District
NOTE: While hosting a press conference in Detroit today asking Michigan Republicans who have voted against the expansion of S-CHIP to reconsider their vote, Governor Granholm singled out two Members of Congress, including U.S. Representative Thaddeus McCotter (MI-11). A vote to override the President's veto of the S-CHIP bill is scheduled for this week in the House of Representatives.