The first residents of Michigan enrolled in the state's Medicaid expansion program, Healthy Michigan, in 2014. Today, more than 650,000 Michiganders are members.

Medicaid benefits go well beyond health. They have a positive impact on participants' physical and mental health and their ability to work or get a job, according to the results of a 2025 study.

Enrollment in Healthy Michigan reduced participants' unpaid medical debt and improved their credit scores.

More recently, researchers at the University of Michigan found that enrollment in Healthy Michigan also reduced participants' unpaid medical debt and improved their credit scores, a result that should give people a better idea of the financial benefits of Medicaid expansion programs, Nora Becker, the lead author on the study, told TheDoctor.

“We know that financial stress from medical debt can affect physical and mental health, including the decision to go without health care to avoid more potential costs,” said Becker.

Data from more than 575,000 enrollees in Healthy Michigan were analyzed for the study. Researchers focused on adults between the ages of 26 and 62 because they were too old to be covered by a parent or guardian's health insurance and too young for Social Security or Medicare eligibility. The researchers looked at anonymous financial information for each participant, from several years before their enrollment in the program to seven years after enrollment.

To get as long-term a view of the program's benefits as possible, they prioritized people who joined the program during its first four calendar years of operation. Almost half of participants enrolled during the program's first year.

What they found was that unpaid medical debt that had gone to a collection agency decreased after about three years, and continued to drop at an even faster rate over time.

During the seven-year follow-up period, Healthy Michigan enrollees' unpaid medical debt decreased by as much as 75 percent.

Having unpaid bills that are sent to collection affects people's credit scores and their ability to get a loan. The number of Healthy Michigan enrollees with credit scores under 600 decreased by 30 percent to 50 percent during the follow-up period. Credit score improvements were seen even after the first year of enrollment.

It takes time to see these benefits because medical debt is a slow process, said Becker. People can try to pay off their debt for years. “So I think it makes sense that we continue to see benefits even years after enrollment,” she said.

Those who are enrolled in Medicaid should know that changes to the program are coming in January 2027. The bill that was passed by Congress last summer implemented a work requirement for those enrolled in Medicaid expansion plans. It also changed how frequently people need to reenroll in those plans. Participants will be required to reenroll every six months, rather than every year.

Medicaid participants will need to pay attention to the changes to the program coming in January 2027. Some who lose coverage may still be eligible for the program.

Researchers who study the Medicaid program are concerned that a lot of people are going to lose their coverage because of these new policies. According to Becker, “A recent estimate is that five to 10 million people nationwide could lose their Medicaid expansion coverage over the next 18 months.” She went on to say researchers are particularly concerned that people might not be aware of these new policies or miss the deadline to submit the necessary paperwork.

Becker, a primary care physician and health economist at the University of Michigan, said many people who lose their coverage might still be eligible for the program because they do not meet the new work requirement and might be exempt from it. She advised Medicaid participants to pay attention to communication from their state's Medicaid office about these changes so they can stay enrolled.

The study is published in JAMA Network Open.