Dear Friend,

Earlier this week, I was at a health center in Kalamazoo to celebrate how our recent balanced, bipartisan budget protects affordable healthcare for millions of Michiganders.

As we face huge federal cuts that threaten to destabilize health care, we took strategic and proactive action in Michigan to keep our neighbors, family, and friends healthy. The budget I signed secures $2.7 billion of federal funding for health care statewide, protecting core Medicaid services and ensuring our hospitals have the resources they need to stay open and keep serving patients.

If we had not got this done, we could have seen an immediate loss of dollars, impacting the ability of nurses, doctors, and support staff to care for patients. That would mean more crowded emergency rooms, longer wait times for appointments, and even hospital closures, especially in rural or underserved communities, impacting all patients, not just those who get their insurance through Medicaid. And for the millions of Michiganders who do get their insurance through Medicaid, it would mean less access to care, from prescriptions and vaccines to surgeries and chemo.

We didn’t let that happen.

By modifying Michigan’s Insurance Provider Assessment, or IPA, we are ensuring that the 2.6 million Michiganders who get their coverage through Medicaid can see a doctor when they get sick or hurt without going into medical debt. Cuts to Medicaid affect everyone, not just those using Medicaid, by driving up the overall cost of health care. As hospitals and providers absorb higher costs, they are forced to either pass costs on to patients or risk closing their doors. Our proactive efforts will require fewer hospitals to make these hard choices, making care more affordable for more Michiganders.

We believe that everyone deserves access to quality, affordable health care. After Republicans in Washington, DC enacted the biggest cut to Medicaid in American history, this budget takes action to protect access to the health care that Michiganders need to survive. I’m grateful to my partners on both sides of the aisle in the Legislature for working together to get this done.

We can’t control federal policy, but we will do everything we can to protect access to your health care in Michigan.

Sincerely,

Gretchen Whitmer

Governor

Expanding Access & Lowering Cost of Health Care   

Here in Michigan, I won’t stop fighting to lower the cost of health care and expand access to quality, affordable care.

Here’s what we’re doing to expand access to health care in Michigan:

• When I was in the Michigan Legislature, I worked across the aisle to establish the bipartisan Healthy Michigan Plan, Michigan’s expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act that now covers hundreds of thousands of people.
• As governor, I signed bipartisan legislation enshrining cost-saving provisions of the Affordable Care Act into state law, including requirements for preventative care, protections for preexisting conditions, and allowing children to stay on their parents’ plans until they turn 26.
• I also signed bipartisan legislation requiring insurance providers to offer equal coverage for mental health and substance use disorder treatments.

Here’s what we’re doing to lower the cost of quality health care in Michigan:

• Everyone agrees there is waste in government that should be addressed. With our partners at MDHHS, we are addressing these problems in Michigan’s Medicaid system without reckless cuts.
• In my 2025 State of the State Address, I committed to working across the aisle to reduce medical debt so that being sick or getting hurt doesn’t also mean being broke. In July, I announced our first round of medical debt forgiveness and erased over $144 million of debt for nearly 210,000 Michiganders across the state by working with Undue Medical Debt.
• We also zeroed out premiums for MIChild, insurance for children in poverty.