Tracking State Rural Health Transformation Plans
KFF Health News is working to collect and post approved plans as more states respond to emails and public records requests for their documents.
Rural Health
KFF Health News covers the health issues facing people who live in America’s rural reaches.
181 - 200 of 792 Results
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In Arizona County That Backed Trump, Conflicted Feelings About Cutting Medicaid
Medicaid plays a vital role in many rural communities that favored President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. But residents still seem open to Republican proposals to cut perceived waste in the program.
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Federal Cuts Ripple Through a Bioscience Hub in Rural Montana
The National Institutes of Health’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, is one of only a few dozen research facilities of its type. The threat of staffing and grant cuts has town leaders worried and has added to long-standing tension around the lab’s presence in this politically conservative region.
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How Trump Aims To Slash Federal Support for Research, Public Health, and Medicaid
One thing experts agree on: The damage from the funding cuts will be varied and immense.
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Housing, Nutrition in Peril as Trump Pulls Back Medicaid Social Services
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.
By Angela Hart -
Rural Patients Face Tough Choices When Their Hospitals Stop Delivering Babies
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.
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Flawed Federal Programs Maroon Rural Americans in Telehealth Limbo
Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
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Picture of Health
Mental Health and Substance Misuse Treatment Is Increasingly a Video Chat or Phone Call Away
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.
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Flawed Federal Programs Maroon Rural Americans in Telehealth Blackouts
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.
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Trump’s Fast-Tracked Deal for a Copper Mine Heightens Existential Fight for Apache
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.
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Medicaid Payments Barely Keep Hospital Mental Health Units Afloat. Federal Cuts Could Sink Them.
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.
By Tony Leys -
Seeking Spending Cuts, GOP Lawmakers Target a Tax Hospitals Love To Pay
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.
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HIV Testing and Outreach Falter as Trump Funding Cuts Sweep the South
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.
By Amy Maxmen -
Montana Lawmakers Approve $124M To Revamp Behavioral Health System
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.
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California’s Primary Care Shortage Persists Despite Ambitious Moves To Close Gap
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.
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Federal Cuts Gut Food Banks as They Face Record Demand
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.
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In a Broken Mental Health System, a Tiny Jail Cell Becomes an Institution of Last Resort
Like local jails nationwide, Montana’s small holding facilities have become institutions of last resort as patients in mental health crisis stall in backlogs, waiting for beds at the state-run mental hospital.
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When Hospitals Ditch Medicare Advantage Plans, Thousands of Members Get To Leave, Too
Breakups between health providers and Advantage plans are increasingly common. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has allowed whole groups of patients to leave their plans.
By Susan Jaffe -
Moms in Crisis, Jobs Lost: The Human Cost of Trump’s Addiction Funding Cuts
In many cases, the money flowed to addiction recovery programs that help rebuild lives by driving people to medical appointments and court hearings, crafting résumés and training them for new jobs, finding them housing, and helping them build social connections unrelated to drugs.
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Covid Worsened Shortages of Doctors and Nurses. Five Years On, Rural Hospitals Still Struggle.
The U.S. faces a crucial shortage of medical providers, especially in rural areas. The problem has been building for a while, experts say, but the pandemic accelerated it by pushing many doctors over the edge into early retirement or other fields.
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Beyond Ivy League, RFK Jr.’s NIH Slashed Science Funding Across States That Backed Trump
A KFF Health News analysis underscores how the terminations have spared no part of the country, politically or geographically. Of the organizations that had grants cut in the first month, about 40% are in states President Donald Trump won in November.
By Rae Ellen Bichell and Rachana Pradhan