By Laura Weber, Michigan Public Radio Network
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-911373.mp3
LANSING, MI –
An effort to get a ballot question that might have allowed Michigan to opt out of the new federal health care reforms has failed. The group Michigan Citizens for Healthcare Freedom collected less than half the petition signatures it needed.
AUDIO:
Republican state Senator Wayne Kuipers says the first thing voters ask him about is national health care.
"People do not like what happened," he says. "They feel like their rights were violated. They didn't feel like Congress addressed the real issue, which everybody was complaining about, and that's cost, and they want it changed."
Kuipers is from Holland, and is running for an open congressional seat. Now that the petition drive has failed to get the question on the ballot, he and other GOP lawmakers in Lansing are working on legislation that would allow people to opt out.
Though Kuipers and conservative activists say the majority of people they talk to don't like the health care reform, progressive groups say the fact that the petition drive collected less than half the necessary signatures shows most people want to give health care reforms a chance.