Let’s move forward on District Detroit project

On the District Detroit, it’s time to move forward and stop dwelling on the past.

e Detroit City Council last week delayed a vote on approvals for $616.3 million in incentives under the state’s little-used “transformational brown eld” program for the $1.53 billion, 10-project proposal from the Ilitch family and New York developer Stephen Ross.

Taking a close look at the deal is the right thing to do, and the council is doing appropriate due diligence and making sure Detroit residents have every opportunity to be heard.

But now it’s time to move forward. is deal is an opportunity to kickstart a district that has been slow to develop and o ers appropriate safeguards for taxpayers. It brings a major-league developer in Ross into Detroit in a big way. It promises to add a large chunk of the residential and commercial development that were part of the original District Detroit vision.

Major projects of this type are never easy to nance, and developers are unanimous in saying that making the money part of the equation work in Detroit requires public support of some kind. e market still doesn’t support from-scratch development under normal market conditions. And a word about those incentives. e transformational brown eld incentives aren’t taking away any tax money that currently exists from other public uses. ey are only capturing future taxes that will be generated if the projects happen, and they very well might not without some form of public support.

Calling the Ilitches and Ross billionaires doesn’t change the fact that nobody, in any city, develops projects of this scope entirely out of their own pockets.

Detroit has come far in improving the perception that it’s a city unfriendly to business.

e city’s skyline is once again set to be changed with new skyscraper construction for the rst time in 30 years. Keeping that momentum going is imperative as downtown’s recovery from the pandemic is still ongoing.

If you’re skeptical of any promise the Ilitch organization makes, this deal is a way to prod those promises forward. e subsidies don’t happen if the projects don’t happen.

e District Detroit does not look like the vision pitched in 2014. At the same time, the Woodward corridor that centers the area looks dramatically di erent than it did 10 years ago. Much of that development has been done by the Ilitches.

e fruits of the city’s other big bet using the “transformational brown eld” incentive for mortgage mogul Dan Gilbert’s big downtown projects are starting to become real. We saw last week that the Book Tower redevelopment is almost ready to open. A new tower under construction on the Hudson’s site is starting to assert itself into the city’s skyline.

City Council and the community bene ts committee have rightly scrutinized the Ilitch-Ross deal and listened to voices of residents both supporting and objecting to the subsidies. It’s perfectly justi ed to take a skeptical eye to the plan.

e fact is, though, the Ilitch-Ross proposal is much more solid than the gauzy vision pitched when the District Detroit was unveiled. It has the additional repower that Ross’ organization brings. It’s time to move forward.

Unless they move quickly to ensure people receiving Medicaid are eligible for it, Michigan will be working to protect the pro ts of Medicaid insurance companies at the expense of the truly needy.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, states engaged in routine reviews of Medicaid bene ciaries’ eligibility. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, Congress passed legislation that traded increased federal funding to states for the continued enrollment of everyone on Medicaid — even if enrollees became ineligible.

While states can stop paying insurers for those no longer eligible for Medicaid as of April 1, Michigan has announced it will delay doing so until at least July 1. Insurers get paid a predetermined amount each month for every insurance card they have issued.

e delay in processing Medicaid redeterminations means Medicaid insurers will continue to pocket taxpayer dollars for each ineligible Medicaid enrollee they have on the books. Instead of an accelerated time frame to recheck eligibility — given the three-year lapse — the state will take more than a year to check eligibility for the rest of those on Medicaid. Prior documents said they would take up to a full 14 months.

Any delay in rechecking Medicaid eligibility means more money for insurers and fewer resources for the truly needy. Michigan taxpayers will have to foot the bill as extra federal dollars are phased out.

ese impacts could be signi cant given Medicaid’s enrollment boom during the COVID-19 pandemic. Nationwide, over 20 million individuals enrolled in the program, with Michigan seeing over 700,000 additional sign-ups. Without Medicaid redetermina- tion procedures actively in place, the number of individuals enrolled in Medicaid who no longer qualify for the program grew, too. Research by the Foundation for Government Accountability found that in 17 other states, approximately 90 percent of those who enrolled during the pandemic were no longer eligible by January 2022. e result was that Medicaid resources owed for nearly three years to managed care insurers to cover individuals who do not even qualify for the program. In many cases where individuals have moved or secured employer-sponsored coverage, these nonquali ed individuals haven’t even used the Medicaid services for which the insurers are being paid. ankfully, Congress passed legislation that sunsets the increased federal funding and allows states to restart Medicaid redeterminations, but Michigan appears to be taking a very slow approach.

Michigan o cials must quickly review enrollees based upon which categories are most likely to be deemed ineligible — likely those groups that grew most during the pandemic or have no claims for service. Removing these noneligible individuals from Medicaid quickly is critical to supporting the most vulnerable of Michigan residents.

Michigan o cials must also use all available and credible data sources to help determine if individuals no longer qualify for reasons like moving, enrolling in private coverage, or passing away. An appeals process must work quickly, and state o cials should continue to update the public about the status of the redetermination process. If Michigan outsources any of this work to third-party organizations, those groups must have no nancial interest in keeping noneligible individuals on Medicaid.

Restarting Medicaid redeterminations will help right-size Medicaid, so it does not divert money away from education or public safety. It will also help restore con dence in the program. Most other social services programs, like food stamps and child care assistance, restarted eligibility checks in the summer of 2020 — Medicaid has been the outlier. ose who qualify for Medicaid will retain coverage, and their care is covered if they are mistakenly removed. Closing the cases of those who no longer qualify will stop blank checks from being sent to insurance companies for ineligible enrollees. Washington, D.C., may have started this problem, but now it’s up to Michigan policymakers to x it, and fast.

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