State Sen. Tom George talks alone on health care, reform

State Sen. Tom George took advantage of his gubernatorial candidates’ absence Tuesday as he spoke to students on his platform for governor.

George, R-Kalamazoo, spoke Tuesday to about 50 students in the Bovee University Center’s Lake Michigan Room. His speech was originally intended to be the first gubernatorial debate put on by Campus Conservatives.

Attorney General Mike Cox, Ann Arbor businessman Rick Snyder, Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard and U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland, all declined to attend.

“I think my opponents got up this morning and, like the groundhog, saw their shadow and scurried back into their burrows,” George said, referring to Groundhog Day.

His two main platforms were reforming state sponsored Medicaid and health insurance for state employees, and pushing for a redrafting of the state constitution.

George’s speech drew interest from Lansing freshman Virginia Bernero, the daughter of Lansing mayor and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Virgil Bernero.

“I’m kind of here to scope out the competition,” she said. “But he’s a candidate for governor in my state, so I’m interested. I want to be informed.”

Silverwood freshman Amy Pape was impressed by George’s speech, especially his stance on the Michigan Promise Scholarship, despite being required to attend for her PSC 105: Introduction to American Government and Politics class.

“I understand why they took it away (last year),” she said of the Promise, a state-sponsored scholarship that provided $4,000 to students attending at least a two-year institution. “I don’t buy things I don’t have money for.”

George argued a disproportional amount of the state budget is being spent on health care. The state now pays Medicaid benefits to 1.8 million people, up from 1 million at the beginning of the last decade, he said.

George proposed the system should focus on rewarding healthy behavior by making recipients sign contracts and meet certain standards to receive the best coverage.

“You can’t just make people healthy just by giving them a card,” he said. “We need to have some strings attached. That’s how we’re going to make that piece of the pie smaller.”

The best way to reform systems such as health care, education and the tax system is to redraft the state constitution, George said. The constitution will be up for redrafting this year for the first time since 1994.