Trump administration awards $50B for rural healthcare
Dec. 29 (UPI) — The Trump administration on Monday announced it will distribute $50 billion dollars to expand access to rural healthcare across all 50 states with investments in growing the workforce, modernizing facilities and introducing new models of care delivery.
States are set to receive first-year awards next year of roughly $200 million under the Rural Health Transformation Program, which Congress authorized earlier this year as part of the Working Families Tax Cuts bill, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a press release.
“More than 60 million Americans living in rural areas have the right to equal access to quality care,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
“This historic investment puts local hospitals, clinics and health workers in control of their communities’ health care,” Kennedy said.
The CMS is set to distribute the $50 billion dollars over the next five years, from 2026 through 2030, as part of the program established by the bill, which is more commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Each year, $5 billion will be distributed equally to each of the 50 states, while another $5 billion will be allocated based on the proportion of rural health facilities, situations at specific facilities in the state and other factors, the agency said on the program website.
The CMS announced each state’s 2026 allocation — Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories are not eligible for the funds — in the release, with the awards ranging from New Jersey’s $147 million to Texas’ $281 million.
The funds are meant to accomplish a range of goals to “make rural America healthy again,” including:
- expanding access to preventive, primary, maternal and behavioral health services;
- strengthening, growing and sustaining the clinical work force in rural areas;
- modernizing health infrastructure and technology;
- driving structural efficiency through streamlining operations and working to make more services available locally;
- and testing new primary care and value-based care models of delivery and payment.
The announcement comes after the American Hospital Association estimated earlier this year that rural hospitals could lose $50.4 billion in revenue from federal Medicaid funds over the next 10 years.
The reason is based on a Congressional Budget Office estimate earlier this year that the $1 trillion that was cut from Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could result in more than 7.8 million more people across the country becoming uninsured.
This loss of Medicaid coverage for patients affects revenue for healthcare providers, and the effects will be felt most acutely in rural areas.
These areas of the country currently include an estimated 16.1 million people with Medicaid coverage. Sparsely populated states such as Montana, Wyoming and Alaska have more than 50% of Medicaid recipients living in rural areas, the American Hospital Association says.
For many rural health facilities, a mixture of Medicare and Medicaid patients help them stay open, Sarah Hohman, director of government affairs for the National Association of Rural Health Clinics, told UPI in July.
“If the coverage losses pan out as they are estimated, that would mean that they are treating fewer patients that are covered by insurance,” Hohman said. “The more you have uncompensated care and individuals not able to pay, your balance gets concerning pretty quickly. That really threatens the financial viability in these areas.”
