With Days To Spare, Michigan's Participation In A Medical Licensure Compact Is On Track To Renewal

Michigan Advance

March 24, 2026

The state’s participation in a nationwide medical licensure compact was on track to be salvaged Tuesday after the Michigan Senate voted unanimously to advance the bill to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Senators advanced House Bill 5455 on a 31-0 margin, with six members excused. It was part of a bipartisan deal in which HB 5455 was tie-barred with Senate Bill 581, unrelated legislation that modifies the definition of a downtown district to include two areas separated by a body of water if the municipality is located on the mainland and one or more islands.

The Senate did so without debate or floor speeches, whipping votes.

Michigan joined the compact when the law was passed and signed during Whitmer’s first term, but the agreement had a sunset date of 2022. That was pushed back to expire on March 28 of this year, and was set to lapse if lawmakers couldn’t get it together to reach another deal.

The compact allows out-of-state doctors the ability to practice in Michigan, as the agreement aligned standards in both Michigan and other states who also signed on.

If the law was allowed to lapse, thousands of doctors and physicians who received their licensure through the compact would lose those licenses.

The House version of the package was sponsored by state Rep. Rylee Linting (R-Wyandotte). A Senate version — Senate Bill 303 — was sponsored by state Sen. Roger Hauck (R-Mount Pleasant). Despite passage through the upper chamber, the GOP-led House declined to take up the legislation.

Hauck’s bill passed the Senate last year but sat dormant when it was referred to the House Rules Committee. Linting’s bill passed in the House in February of this year, and was finally passed by the Senate on Tuesday.

The bill was given immediate effect.

For reasons unknown, the compact became the subject of a stalemate between the House and Senate. A deal was finally brokered between the chambers last week, announced by Michigan House Speaker Matt Hall (R-Richland Township)

Hall praised passage of the HB 5455 and its tie-barred SB 581, sponsored by state Sen. Kevin Hertel (D-St. Clair Shores).

“Today, the Michigan Senate performed on the great deal that I negotiated to extend Michigan’s participation in the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact,” Hall said in a statement Tuesday. “This will ensure that more than 8,000 doctors can continue practicing without interruption, helping protect access to care for folks across our state and preserving up to 100,000 appointments every single day.”

However, Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks (D-Grand Rapids) previously noted that the last-minute deal was only necessitated by Hall’s refusal to push through Hauck’s bill.

“While the House speaker says we had a ‘crisis’ on our hands, I want to be clear: this should never have become a crisis,” Brinks said in a March 19 written statement. “This could have been easily settled months ago with the Senate’s bipartisan legislation, but it became clear that the speaker was unwilling to take that path.”

The compact needs to be redeployed in state law by March 28.

A message seeking comment from Whitmer’s office, inquiring on how soon she planned to sign the bill, was not returned at the time of publication.

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