Lipton Lite?
Once the darling of the tea party, Michigan Lt. Governor Brian Calley seems to have fallen out of disfavor of late. Calley, the father of a child with autism, has championed mandatory insurance coverage for the diagnosis and treatment of autism. This does NOT sit well with his tea party brethern, nosiree Bob.
I have been tempted to write about Calley’s interesting situation. His tea party support suggests that he’d be against any sort of mandate like this but, apparently, having an autistic child has pried open his heart a bit, at least in that regard. At any rate, I haven’t been inclined to criticize him for his hypocrisy or for his use of his position of power to advocate for a cause that’s near and dear to his heart and family, not when it can help out a group that needs it.
But the tea party is. They are totally inclined.
The Tea Party of West Michigan (“Influence policy, effect [sic] elections, protect the Constitution.”) sent me an email titled “Autism bill coming up for a vote this week”. Here’s the message:
Not only are they picking winners and losers, Autism over diabetes, birth defects, other mental illnesses, etc. they are going to do something that has never been done before. With SB 981 (Richardville) they will establish a precedent of using tax dollars to reimburse private insurance companies to cover 1 disease. On top of that it will hurt the small companies because it excludes “self insured entities” with over 50 employees.
Autism is also being addressed in our Dept. of Comm. Health Budget but that one is because of a law suit and there is really nothing the state can to about it. The ones mentioned above should not be done.Call your Michigan Senator and Michigan House Representative and any others you may know. It looks like the Senate may have already passed this to the house but call them anyway and let them know how unfair they were in passing this.
This is one of the only things that has been done in the Michigan legislature since 2010 that can truly be called “bipartisan”. But the tea party is simply too cold-hearted to allow a group that needs help to get that help, not when it involves spending taxpayer money. I’m beginning to think of them less as group of ideologues and more as group that is just callous, greedy, and without compassion.
And Lt. Gov. Calley is simply too compassionate for the likes of them.
[Image credit: FibonacciBlue | Flickr]
