The Michigan Democratic Party issued the following press release:
Today in front of the Michigan State Medical Society, GOP gubernatorial candidate Dick DeVos once again disappointed Michigan voters by not outlining a specific plan on health care coverage in the state. DeVos did say job creation will help improve health care coverage, but he still can't prove that he has created one job in Michigan. www.michigandems.com/documentation.html
Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer quickly provided evidence showing that DeVos has a record of refusing to fight for affordable health care coverage for his workers. Reports show that while DeVos was president of Amway, the company opposed seeking discounts from health care providers that would have lowered health care costs for Amway employees.
'How can Dick DeVos talk about job creation being the key to improving health care, when he can't prove that he has created a single Michigan job?' asked Brewer. 'DeVos has already shown that he is a job faker and this new evidence shows that he is also a health care faker.'
The Grand Rapids Business Journal reported on July 12th, 1993, 'Amway benefits director Tom Cole, who has been an outspoken critic of group discounting, said Amway will insist on a similar position from Healthcare 2000. 'If it does involve asking providers for discounts, Amway will not be a participant,' Cole said.' http://www.michigandems.com/GRBJ.pdf
DeVos has admitted that after he cut over one thousand Michigan jobs at Amway, he then reduced health care coverage for the rest of his Amway employees. DeVos said at a health care forum, 'I've seen the results of some of, of the changes that we made at Alticor when we went through the downsizing we had to change some of our, some of our health care programs, we found out when we engaged our people in the decision making process and made them consumers along with us, that the results were frankly impressive.' (Advantage Benefits Group, April 18th, 2006). Listen: http://michigandems.com/Research/devoscutbenifits.mp3
'DeVos' opposition to the discounts shows that he is out of touch with the health care needs of the average Michigan worker,' added Brewer. 'How can he fight for the 1 million Michigan people who are uninsured, when he refused to fight for lower health care cost for his workers at Amway?'
Eric Baerren with the Mt Pleasant Morning Sun wrote a recent column about DeVos' visit to the paper. 'During last week's visit to the Morning Sun, Dick DeVos didn't include health care on his list of the state's most pressing issues. (I guess when you inherit a fortune built on suckers swindled by soap, the price of prescription drugs isn't so important). On the other hand, if you look at the Michigan Manufacturer's Association legislative agenda for 2006, health care is featured prominently.' http://www.themorningsun.com/stories/040706/loc_eric001.shtml
In contrast to DeVos, Governor Jennifer Granholm proposed a revolutionary new health care plan to provide access to affordable health insurance to more than 1 million uninsured citizens.
http://www.michigan.gov/som/0,1607,7-192-143157-,00.html
