SHELBY TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WXYZ) — A group of about two dozen stood out in the chilly wind and rain, outside of a Shelby Township restaurant where State Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey was holding a Republican political fundraiser.
People in the group say they are standing up for those who can’t and wanted the Senate leader to put their issue on the legislative agenda.
We tried to talk with the Senator as he arrived, but at the behest of people inside, the restaurant owners asked us to stay back.
Auto insurance reform was signed into law two years ago and celebrated as a bipartisan victory. Now two years later thousands of people are seeing major cuts to their lifetime critical care benefits.
Christa Rolando is an administrator with Relevar Home Health Care in Utica and helped organize the protest.
She tells 7 Action News about Senator Shirkey, “I feel he is putting up the walls to stop any fixes. I mean he's said that they're not even going to look at it until, you know, something else occurs that's detrimental and it's detrimental. We have a lot of patients that are losing their benefits that need us."
One of Relevar’s clients is David Oswald who at age 15 was hit by a car.
Thirty years later he needs home care and transportation because of the life-changing injuries he described as, “Broke both my collarbones… punctured left lung, my head sheared the lady’s windshield. I should be dead, but Jesus Christ had other plans for me.”
Republican State Representative Doug Wozniak of Macomb County was at the fundraiser, but sides with the protesters outside telling 7 Action News, “We need people to get paid for what they're doing. And we have to take care of our residents. I can't tell you what I'm going to talk to him about but I will talk to him.”
