Michigan spends six figures begging residents not to commit suicide

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services spent more than $3.1 million in advertising across social media on 68 media campaigns from 2024 to 2025, according to documents obtained through a records request.

The department ran ad campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Snapchat, TikTok and LinkedIn. The state of Michigan also spends taxpayer dollars to buy your attention through advertisements on gas pumps and highway billboards.

The documents show what state lawmakers can or should do with taxpayer money.

The state health department spent $111,260 from 2024-25 urging residents not to kill themselves. The funding advertised the suicide hotline.

The state advertises doula services and safe firearm storage. The department spent $34,440 on YouTube advertising aimed at compulsive gamblers.

Some big items:

• $240,00 advertising the COVID and flu vaccine,
• $103,139 preventing tobacco use,
• $101,000 on a drinking water campaign,
• $71,800 promoting safe firearm storage,
• $46,000 advertising foster care.

The state bought $30,160 of YouTube ads trying to get people to stop smoking menthol cigarettes. It spent $81,000 of advertising on Facebook and Instagram to target substance use disorder.

From January 2024 through August 2024, the state health department spent $70,000 on YouTube and another $30,000 on Facebook and Instagram to advertise “healthy eating.”

It spent $26,000 in TikTok advertising on TikTok, $32,000 advertising reproductive health, and $26,000 advertising doula care.

The state health department employs nearly 16,000 people. The department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

There’s probably no harm in this advertising, but this is not the proper role for government, Michael Van Beek, director of research for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told CapCon in an email.

“The state health department would do better focusing its resources on improving the services it provides Michigan residents,” Van Beek wrote. “The problem is that state law grants the health department such broad authority that it can legally spend public money telling people what to eat, how to care for their children and what medical treatments to get. These types of decisions aren’t top-down ones and should instead be made by individuals and families, by neighborhoods and communities.”