Truth: I have had family members ignored and mistreated in nursing homes. I’m so passionate about improving standards that I absolutely opposed the Republican backed bill they are referencing (HB 5609 of 2021) which was literally written and pushed by the corporate nursing home industry (HCAM) which has an undeniably terrible track record when it comes to care for the elderly. 

The bill actually eliminated protections for seniors including:

-eliminated a requirement that state regulators must take nursing home inspection results into account during facility licensure. 

- removing a requirement that nursing homes use peer-reviewed, evidence-based

nationally recognized clinical process guidelines to develop policies and protocols 

-making it easier for nursing homes to avoid state inspection

-eliminating nursing home reporting requirements on certain types of complaints from residents including a provision that exempts reporting if a “thorough” assessment by the nursing home contradicted the resident, giving nursing homes a massive loophole to not report complaints and taking away the ability of seniors to get accountability from regulators. 

-making it so that fines from bad actors would have to be given back to those same facilities that were fined

-removed requirements that LARA report night and weekend complaints to the legislature.

Sources:

https://legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/billanalysis/House/pdf/2021-HLA-5609-F43F7971.pdf

https://legislature.mi.gov/documents/2021-2022/publicact/pdf/2022-PA-0187.pdf

Truth: HB 5726 of 2018 was a Devos/Amway backed measure which was sponsored by a Republican. 18 other progressive democrats joined me in voting NO on this bill. “Pyramid” schemes were already illegal before this bill passed under both state and federal law. The purpose of this bill was to carve out a legal framework for the Devos/Amway’s “pyramid” scheme to be legal by creating a rebuttable presumption that a plan or operation was not a “pyramid” scheme if certain conditions were met. This definitional adjustment moved Amway’s “pyramid” scheme from legally grey to fully legal. I voted against the bill because the Devos/Amway model is absolutely a “pyramid” scheme and the state should not allow ANY such schemes to exist. 

https://wwmt.com/news/state/house-passes-new-pyramid-promotional-scheme-act-04-25-2018

https://jacobin.com/2018/09/richard-devos-amway-multi-level-marketing-conservatism

https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2017-2018/billanalysis/House/htm/2017-HLA-5726-5B0ED913.htm

https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2017-2018/publicact/pdf/2018-PA-0186.pdf