There are small, but hugely important budget panels that finalize the details of spending, just before the budget bills go to a final vote before the House and Senate.

It’s the real sausage-making parts of the budget, which can get really ugly.

In Lansing, Rep. Brian Calley (R-Portland) is proposing that the budget target meetings be subject to the Open Meetings Act.

I’m not sure what this will do, but I doubt you’d see many legislators rudely walking out of meetings like we sometimes hear about.

Please understand, however, that about 98 percent of these meetings are remarkably boring, and often hard to follow.

But maybe legislators will bring some good old-fashioned posturing into the meetings (right, like it’s not already there). 

The Open Meetings Act may not help the process, but would make it more interesting. It may also make those critical of the system even more critical of it. Still, the sunshine can’t hurt.

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Last month I wrote here about the effort in Michigan to curb the problem of excessive hospital errors, and how Michigan has become a national model, following years of embarrassing numbers regarding those errors.

I revisit the subject this month, as this current issue deals with health and wellness.

I think I saw some real evidence of the effort to stop hospital errors up close, as I went in for some outpatient nasal surgery this past month. (I’m at home in recovery as a write this, so please tolerate any rambling.)

Maybe the most glaring piece of evidence in the effort to avoid errors was the fact that every health professional who communicated with me in any way while in my hospital room asked me my full name and birth date before doing anything else.

They just wanted to make sure they were cutting up or giving medication to the right guy, I guess.

And the effort to contain costs was also glaring.

They had me in and out of the hospital in about six hours, where the same surgery a quarter of a century ago kept me in the hospital for a couple of days.

What does this all mean? It’s clear they’re trying to make things better.

It also becomes clear that when you’re in for even minor surgery, you start to understand the huge costs of running a health system. I’m lucky in my little corner of the world.  I have health insurance.  And my experience with the health system was a good one.

But to say things like “the current system is working, don’t screw with it,” like we’ve heard from several “knee-jerk” types recently, is clearly wrong. That’s because having even a great experience in the healthcare system raises more questions than answers regarding the future of healthcare.

The overriding thought I had during my recovery was the question of how we can deliver this kind of healthcare affordably to all Americans.

I have no answer to that—hope our elected officials do.

		Rob Baykian is director of news and operations at the 67-station Michigan Radio Network. He has been covering the Capitol since 1981.