Rep. Mike Shirkey said a little less than two months ago he was a hard "no" vote on the expansion of Medicaid in Michigan.

On Wednesday, the GOP State Representative from Clarklake voted in favor of sending a bill that would allow Medicaid expansion to the House floor for a vote.

The House Michigan Competitiveness Committee voted 9-5 to send House Bill 4714 to the House of Representatives for a vote.

Rep. Shirkey, chair of the competitiveness committee, and fellow GOP State Reps. Frank Foster, R-Petoskey; Dave Pagel, R-Berrien Springs; and Ken Yonker, R-Caledonia, all voted "yes" along with five Democrats.

Reps. Kevin Cotter, R-Mount Pleasant; Ken Goike, R-Ray Township; Ray Franz, R-Onekama; Tom Leonard, R-DeWitt Township; and Dan Lauwers, R-Brockway Township, voted "no" to moving the bill to the House for a vote.

Rep. Gail Haines, R-Waterford, was absent.

Rep. Shirkey said once he researched Medicaid expansion, there were several points that he said made him think it was in the best interests of taxpayers to push for it, although he said he is against Obamacare.

"I hate these rules," Rep. Shirkey said. "I hate Obamacare. I hope at the end of the day, Obamacare is a miserable failure. But it is the law of the land. We got this hand dealt to us."

He said he thinks what eventually will defeat Obamacare is when people realize how truly expensive it will be.

He said Medicaid expansion addressed uncompensated care in the health industry and that estimates of the costs of uncompensated care in Michigan vary from half a billion to a billion dollars year.  

"This provides us an opportunity to address that," Rep. Shirkey said.

Small- and medium-sized businesses in Michigan would be subject to "extreme uncertainty" if Medicaid expansion wasn't an option, he said.

Employees who make between $8 to $10 an hour could go on Medicaid as opposed to signing up for the government health exchanges to get their insurance, Rep. Shirkey said. If the entire population that was from 100 percent to 133 percent of the poverty level went on the government health exchange, taxpayers would pay more in subsidies than they would in taxes if that same group went on the expanded Medicaid, he said.

Critics of Medicaid expansion say they don't trust the federal government to live up to its promise to pay 100 percent of costs even for a few years. And they complain that expanding Medicaid as part of Obamacare will further increase health care costs and further entrench the federal government in people's lives, among other issues.

An Oregon study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that expanding Medicaid found that there were few positive effects from Medicaid coverage. 

In an email, Rep. Franz said he was worried the expansion could cover as many as 600,000 additional people.

"What happens to our health care system with the influx of 600,000-plus new covered individuals? It can only be overwhelmed," Rep. Franz said. "While the bill states that it will stop benefits if the Feds don't pay 100 percent … I don't believe for a moment that the benefit could be stopped and I don't believe for a moment that the Feds will pay 100 percent forever. There simply isn't the money for it. 

"I believe it will cost our state more than half a billion dollars a year," he continued. "Where is that revenue going to come from — schools, roads or new taxes? While it would be an easy vote and be a very politically advantageous position, I will not leave that bill to my successors in this seat or to future generations. … This legislation will hurt and entrap people over the long haul; hurt our doctors and health system; cost millions and billions we don't have, and leave future generations with bills and responsibilities that will be difficult if not impossible to handle."

Wednesday's vote to move the bill to the House floor followed a vote on Tuesday that accepted substitute language for HB 4714. The new version of the bill, stripped out items that made passage conditional upon the federal government agreeing to specific terms.

Over the past two decades, public school students in Florida have made the second-highest gains in the nation on standardized test scores while overall spending on education has increased the least.

By contrast, and despite the impression given by unions and school officials in the conventional public school system, district spending in Michigan increased substantially higher than Florida while returning lower results.

A comparison of the two states documenting the numbers as well as answering why this is happening comes from a new study from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

"From 1998 to 2011, Florida students' average test scores increased by 9.1 percent in fourth-grade reading," the study reports. "In Michigan, these same scores increased by just 1.3 percent, and the national average increased by just 3.4 percent. In fourth-grade math, Florida students improved their scores by 11.2 percent from 1996 to 2011, while Michigan students improved by only 4.5 percent and the nation by 8.1 percent."

Yet, every year from 1990 to 2009 Michigan spent more per pupil than Florida and the Sunshine State served a larger share of low-income students.

"Florida's students, especially those from low-income backgrounds, have been making substantial and unmistakable learning gains for more than a decade," said Michael Van Beek, director of education policy at the Center and the author of the study. "Michigan policymakers should take notice. There's a lot to learn from this other peninsular state."   

Van Beek said the reason for the gains are likely due to educational reforms in Florida leading to greater accountability for schools, and educational choice for parents and students. He wrote in the study:

Immediately prior to and during Florida's remarkable improvement, the state made substantial changes to the policies that govern its public education system. These included a new school accountability system, clear limits on social promotion, considerable expansions in the schools that parents could choose from, resources on literacy, and alternative routes to certification for aspiring teachers. Some of these policies have been rigorously studied and shown to have a positive impact on student achievement in Florida.

Some specific recommendations include: "expanding parental choice through a tuition tax credit scholarship for private school enrollment; eliminating all geographical limitations to public school choice and online learning opportunities; creating an easy-to-understand A-through-F school accountability system; expanding alternative teacher certification; and limiting social promotion of third-graders who are not proficient in reading."

"Florida's reform model focuses on creating the incentives for public schools to improve, both from the state level and the local level, through parent-driven accountability," Van Beek said. "There's no silver bullet here, but Florida's example should be considered when setting the agenda to improve Michigan's public education system in the years to come."