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Tracking the $50B Rural Health Fund
KFF Health News is working to collect and post complete application materials, by state, here and will update this repository as new materials, released in response to public records requests, arrive.
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Republicans promise that $50 billion in new health funding will help rural America. But it’s not expected to aid the years-long effort in North Carolina’s Martin County to reopen its only hospital.
A $50 billion federal fund is supposed to modernize rural health with electronic health records, AI, telehealth, and more. But community clinics and rural health advocates fear that the contractors administering the money for states will bite off a big chunk before it reaches rural patients.
A rural Nebraska dialysis unit that was hemorrhaging money closed, upending patients’ lives. That’s despite a federal rural health program that granted the state more than $200 million this year to improve health care in rural communities.
States are rolling out plans for their share of a $50 billion fund meant to improve rural health care. In some states, the money may provoke rural hospitals to cut services.
Some Republican state lawmakers and state health associations are pushing back against spending plans under the Trump administration’s $50 billion federal rural health fund. Federal administrators already approved states’ plans, but in many cases, state lawmakers must greenlight spending.
State officials believe they’ve found a way to extend the life of federal Rural Health Transformation Program money Wyoming is receiving as part of last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act — by investing most of it.
Alabama, a state with one of the nation’s highest infant mortality rates, is betting on robots to help fix its maternal care crisis. But the state’s plan for telerobotic ultrasounds in rural areas has raised doubts.
Every state will receive at least $100 million annually from the federal Rural Health Transformation fund, but some scored millions more based on how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services judged the “quality” of their plans and willingness to pass policies embracing "Make America Healthy Again" initiatives.
The Trump administration has championed its Rural Health Transformation Program as an investment in American families who have been left behind. But Native American tribes, whose communities have a significant presence in rural America and have some of the greatest health needs, are ineligible to apply directly for funding.
Proposals from states that have shared their applications to a new $50 billion rural health program include using drones to deliver medication, installing refrigerators to expand access to healthy produce, and bringing telehealth to libraries, day cares, and senior centers.
Amid public forums and local cries for help, states are also talking with large health systems, technology companies, and others amid intensifying competition for shares of a $50 billion fund to improve rural health.
States are battling for their piece of $50 billion in federal rural health funding, but it’s not just hospitals vying for the money. Tech startups and policy demands are raising the stakes as Medicaid cuts loom.
The health secretary’s statement doesn’t consider the impact that the Medicaid cuts advanced in the same law will have on health care in rural America.
Lawmakers added a $50 billion program for rural health to President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending package with promises it would help plug the hole left by Medicaid cuts. Rural hospital and clinic leaders worry the infusion won’t reach the right places.
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