Off-Topic: A Personal Request: Please Support Mary Belden!

OK, I'll be frank, this has little to do with the Affordable Care Act itself. Michigan's state legislature has already (grudgingly) passed the ACA's Medicaid expansion program (we call it "Healthy Michigan" here, and it's been very successful).

In other words, the only directly ACA-related items likely to come up over the next couple of years are presumably a) continuing support for Medicaid expansion (not sure if it has to be renewed annually or what) and b) the outside possibility of voting on establishing our own ACA health insurance exchange in the event that the Halbig/King cases end up being upheld by the SCOTUS.

Having said that, if you support me and the work I'm doing here, I'd like to ask a personal favor of you: Please help out the woman running for representative in Michigan's 40th state house district, Mary Belden.

I met Mary a couple of years ago when we worked together to put through a local high school bond issue. She's smart, tough, well-spoken, knowledgable on the issues and is running the first real campaign in years in a district which the Republicans have taken for granted for longer than I can remember.

Mary strongly supports public education, fixing Michigan's roads, equal pay and reproductive rights for women, protecting the environment and eliminating the retirement tax imposed by Gov. Snyder and the Republicans in our legislature burdening our senior citizens, among other things. You can read more about her and her campaign at her website (which I had the honor of developing).

She's an all around good egg and will do an excellent job of representing the rights of those of us who don't have millions of dollars to buy politicians. Plus, if she wins, I'll be represented in the state house by someone I can be proud of for the first time in years.

As a bonus, if she wins, you'll have the extra joy of knowing that Mitt Romney's old hometown will be represented by a Democrat! Woo-hoo!

If you were considering throwing a few bucks my way (which I appreciate tremendously!), please consider donating to her campaign instead (or, of course, in addition lol...).