Rural Dispatch: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Flawed Federal Programs Maroon Rural Americans in Telehealth Blackouts
Sarah Jane Tribble and Holly K. Hacker and Lydia Zuraw
Taxpayers — through federal infrastructure programs — have paid billions of dollars to internet companies to hook up rural Americans. Some communities have nothing to show for it, leaving medically vulnerable rural patients disconnected and without access to telehealth.
Flawed Federal Programs Maroon Rural Americans in Telehealth Limbo
Sarah Jane Tribble
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HIV Testing and Outreach Falter as Trump Funding Cuts Sweep the South
Amy Maxmen
A disruption in federal funds has jeopardized HIV testing and outreach in Mississippi, and researchers warn of a resurgence of the epidemic in the South.
How Trump Aims To Slash Federal Support for Research, Public Health, and Medicaid
Elisabeth Rosenthal
One thing experts agree on: The damage from the funding cuts will be varied and immense.
Seeking Spending Cuts, GOP Lawmakers Target a Tax Hospitals Love To Pay
Phil Galewitz
Republicans, on the hunt for spending cuts, are eyeing a special kind of Medicaid tax that nearly every state uses to boost funding for hospitals, nursing homes, and other providers.
Trump’s Fast-Tracked Deal for a Copper Mine Heightens Existential Fight for Apache
Melissa Bailey
Apache tribal members are already feeling psychological and spiritual harm as the Trump administration moves to fast-track a deal to turn their sacred land of Oak Flat, Arizona, into a copper mine.
Rural Patients Face Tough Choices When Their Hospitals Stop Delivering Babies
Arielle Zionts
More than 100 rural hospitals have stopped delivering babies since 2021, including a South Dakota hospital that serves small towns, farming communities, and a Native American reservation. Patients there now travel at least an hour to give birth.
California’s Primary Care Shortage Persists Despite Ambitious Moves To Close Gap
Bernard J. Wolfson and Vanessa G. Sánchez
The state has in recent years embraced several initiatives recommended in an influential health care workforce report, including alternative payment arrangements for primary care doctors to earn more. Despite increasing residency programs, student debt forgiveness, and tuition-free medical school, California is unlikely to meet patient demand, observers say.
Medicaid Payments Barely Keep Hospital Mental Health Units Afloat. Federal Cuts Could Sink Them.
Tony Leys
Patients seeking mental health care are more likely to be on Medicaid than patients in more profitable areas of care, such as cancer or cardiac treatment.
Mental Health and Substance Misuse Treatment Is Increasingly a Video Chat or Phone Call Away
Phillip Reese and Oona Zenda
More Californians are getting mental health or substance use disorder treatment online or over the phone than in person, according to a KFF Health News analysis of UCLA’s latest California Health Interview Survey. But the telehealth experience isn’t always positive.
Montana Lawmakers Approve $124M To Revamp Behavioral Health System
Sue O'Connell
The legislation calls for a new mental health facility in eastern Montana, upgrades to existing state facilities, expansion of community services, and revisions to commitment procedures.
Federal Cuts Gut Food Banks as They Face Record Demand
Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez
Food banks nationwide are being pinched by record demand, high food prices, and hundreds of millions of dollars in federal budget cuts. As the economy plods onto shaky ground, food bank leaders hope Congress patches the holes by passing a new farm bill.
Housing, Nutrition in Peril as Trump Pulls Back Medicaid Social Services
Angela Hart
About half of states have broadened Medicaid, the state-federal low-income health care program, to pay for social services such as housing and nutritional support. The Trump administration, however, views these experiments as distractions from the core mission to provide health care.
Los hospitales que atienden partos en zonas rurales están cada vez más lejos de las embarazadas
Arielle Zionts
Más de un centenar de hospitales rurales han dejado de atender partos desde 2021, según el Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. El cierre de los servicios de obstetricia se suele achacar a la falta de personal y la falta de presupuesto.