Picking up where he left off during his first term and fulfilling a key 2024 campaign promise, President Donald Trump recently announced first-year awards under a new $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to every state to expand access to healthcare in rural communities.
Created under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), the program will distribute funding over five years beginning this year.
All 50 states will receive funding under the Rural Health Transformation Program, with first-year allocations ranging from roughly $147 million to $281 million per state based on certain criteria.
This year’s awards average roughly $200 million per state, with funds aimed at stabilizing rural hospitals and improving access to health services, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The rollout follows months of criticism from Democrats of the OBBB, which passed last July with only Republican support. While Democrats falsely labeled the bill as nothing more than a tax break for the rich, that didn’t stop Democrat states from applying for rural healthcare funding, as reported by the Daily Caller.
In Pennsylvania, Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro praised the state’s award as a major step toward improving rural access, despite having criticized the legislation during its passage. Similar statements followed in Kansas, North Carolina, and Hawaii, where governors who had warned the OBBB would harm healthcare eagerly sought to take advantage of its healthcare-related outlays.
Under the program’s structure, half of the funding is distributed evenly among states, while the remaining funds are allocated based on factors like rural population levels, financial strain on rural hospitals, and state-submitted reform proposals.
CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said the funding is intended to modernize rural health facilities, strengthen the clinical workforce, expand telehealth, and support new care-delivery models for rural communities.
The program is structured to reward reform rather than simply increase spending. States were required to submit detailed plans outlining policy changes and access improvements in order to receive federal dollars, and CMS retains the authority to reduce or revoke funding if benchmarks are not met.
President Trump said the rural health investment was made possible “by cutting massive waste, fraud, and abuse from Medicaid and reinvesting those funds to revitalize hospitals in our cherished rural communities.”
Rather than expanding Medicaid eligibility or increasing reimbursement across the board – approaches that have only increased both spending and fraud in the past – the Trump administration framed the Rural Health Transformation Program as a targeted correction that redirects savings from inefficiency toward stabilizing rural hospitals, expanding telehealth access, and strengthening local workforce pipelines.
President Trump described the initiative as the largest federal investment in rural healthcare in U.S. history, presenting it as a way to expand access to high-quality care regardless of geography while avoiding broader entitlement expansion.
Administration officials have pointed to persistent disparities between rural and urban health systems — including higher hospital closure rates, chronic workforce shortages, and worse health outcomes overall — as justification for focusing resources on access and structural reform rather than across-the-board spending increases.
Rural communities have fallen behind urban areas in life expectancy, according to Oz. This gap in health outcomes reflects structural failures in how care has been delivered outside major population centers rather than a lack of federal spending overall.
Oz described the $50 billion initiative as a 50 percent increase in Medicaid spending targeted specifically at rural health while carefully safeguarding against waste, emphasizing that the funding is intended to restructure care delivery rather than serve as a temporary financial backstop. The goal is to stabilize access and redesign systems that have struggled for years, not simply subsidize existing shortfalls.
At least 60 million Americans live in areas where services commonly available in urban settings remain out of reach, according to Oz. The program is designed to encourage states to compete for funding by proposing reforms that remove barriers to care, including restrictions that have limited telehealth expansion.
CMS said states will begin implementing their rural health plans this year, with federal oversight, regular reporting requirements, and coordination through a national rural health summit aimed at tracking progress and sharing best practices.
As the rollout moves forward, rural healthcare is likely to remain a central policy and messaging issue heading into the 2026 midterm elections, particularly in states where rural hospitals play an outsized role in local communities.
Sarah Katherine Sisk is a proud Hillsdale College alumna and a master’s student in economics at George Mason University. You can follow her on X @SKSisk76.
Think of all the billions of fraud going to [mainly] blue states and how many needy people could use some help! Then there’s the whole Obamacare scam where prices DID NOT decrease but Big Pharma got richer than ever!
Speaking for myself who lives and has always lived in rural areas, I applaud this. So badly needed. The mainstream media cares little to nothing about what happens to people living in rural areas of the US. Just follow their reporting.
Amazing, criticize a bill as waste then take it any way. Go figure. And these states will not acknowledge President Trump for it.
I sincerely hope that there really is “federal oversight, regular reporting requirements and tracking of the progress” of this expenditure. Seems whenever Democrats are trusted to make sure our tax dollars are spent for what was intended has been a grand failure. We also need to make sure the GOP retains the majority in DC for the next couple of terms!
Just wondering where the oversight is for these payments? Does the Federal Government trust some states (where fraud has run rampant) to actually use the money for Rural healthcare?
Don’t be surprised if the democrats take credit for this. I saved this quote, but can’t remember the author. So here it is, “Put in the effort to be creative and prosper, you are then free to be charitable. Force is a toxic ingredient that will disentify any creator. The frustration of the producers, is that they create a goose that lays a golden egg, and the government takes the golden egg, splits it up, and distributes it to those whom they deem needy (mouchers, looters, parasites), and take credit for the giving of the golden egg and at the same time denigrate the creator of the goose that laid the golden egg.” Perhaps from Atlas Shrugged? Sounds like the democrats playbook to me.
Again President Trump overshadowed the whiners in the dem party. That the Big Beautiful Bill had nothing to do with the Rich. It is a bill for the people. Only the dems didn’t like that so they started lies that it was only for the very rich. They never mentioned no tax on tips no tax on overtime no tax on SS. The dem states immediately started state tax on tips, overtime and SS. Just to make sure Trump’s federal tax cuts would be seen as nothing. So much for democrats being for the average working man and woman. More than thirty years ago here in this state raising taxes was not popular so they called them fees. Those fees are still there. They were supposed to be used for improving bridges in this state. The bridges are still needing these improvements. Where did the “fee” for that go to. There is no accounting under the dems. No responsibility is asked of those in charge of collecting and distributing these fees. They only complain when they can’t spend anymore money and what is over at the end of the fiscal year they have to return that tax money to the people. To circumvent raising the taxes they call them fees. The dems will keep you broke one way or another. As soon as Trump leaves office and a democrat would take his place this 50 Billion for rural people will be scooped up by the powers in charge then. You can bet on it. Oversight will stop. And the money will disappear for the people to get access to healthcare.
The devil Demo’s are not going to like Trump’s new beautiful healthcare plan that will really help those who really need the help your healthcare. Big Pharma aren’t going to like this.
I’d withhold the funds from Blue States and any State run by backstabbing RINOs until they each publicly admit they were dead wrong and sincerely apologize for their bitching, moaning, groaning and fighting against the OBBB and this program. AND they must sincerely and publicly PRAISE Trump and his wisdom and the Conservatives in both the Senate and House for passing the OBBB. Otherwise, they get ZIP.
Further, Trump and his cabinet better put their best ‘watch dogs’ on this money from start to finish and track every dime of it so it doesn’t mysteriously disappear in the hands and pockets of the DemoRATS and Somalis.
I’m certain these crooks have already planned to steal this money in their WASTE FRAUD and ABUSE masterful techniques.
I live in a rural county though we are somehow a city with no money to spare. We have an urgent care clinic that needs to be open 24/7 because we are 30+ miles from a major hospital, but fly many patients via helicopter to the hospital because of the traffic congestion and accidents which can make a half hour drive take 2, 3 or more hours. We have a small hospital 30 miles away in the opposite direction, but they also send many patients to Reno hospitals for treatment as well. We have a big turnover of staff at the clinic and not necessarily the most competent doctors. I prefer the few PA’s we have had over the doctors because they seem to be more aware of what is going on. We could really use a small emergency hospital for emergencies, that can do minor surgeries, and can deliver babies. We are staffed by nurses, PA’s, and doctors from a major hospital, but have minimal services and one doctor for appointments that are not part of urgent care.
I am so thankful for this Dr. Oz, and our President Trump. This money is so necessary, as so many in our nation do not have access to ever an ER/clinic, needing to drive upwards of 75 miles for service. Also glad these entities will need to report in, not just take the money and leave the people in the lurch, just a thought
It’s a shame really. His administration has a health care plan but the demoncrats will not pass it. They want to refund obummer care, the biggest waste of money and designed to make insurance and big pharma rich. All I can say is monitor the blue states EXTREMELY carefully or they will steal the funding.
Expand nationwide
Use fraud funds for HC then reroute
However the WV state govt is clueless as representatives keep sending out newsletters saying rural hospitals and patients are suffering because of Trump. My rural hospital is pretty much stellar, although some of the services need to be beefed up so people don’t have to take windy and bumpy roads an hour and a half away to an urban medical facility.
Great, but let us not forget that hospitals and clinics are nothing but bricks and mortar. It is doctors and nurses that provide healthcare. The diminishing number of physicians in all specialties relative to population is real. If they do not exist to provide care in rural hospitals, such edifices are useless. Layers of administrators are useless when it is care that is needed.
Also, medical care has become sophisticated needing a variety of well trained specialists and the technological and employee support needed for best care. This cannot be duplicated in rural settings.
By simply lauding more dollars spent on rural care without the specifics needed to make the use of these dollars optimal gets us nowhere.
ILMAR AND THE SOMALIS ARE DROOLING WITH THIER FANGS BEING LICKED WITH FORKED TOUNGES – THE TAILS WHIPPING AROUND AS THEY DANCE ON CLOVEN HOOVES AS ANOTHER MULTI BILLION DOLLAR PAY DAY IS COMING….
Americans will just sit back on key boards watch complain and scream and do nothing– except the left will defend them— once again— THIS TIME DADDY WILL BE OFF GOLFING i dont see anyone in te cabinet except rubio maybe having the chops to be 1% of Trump
DOESNT REALLY MATTER until drs get thier heads out of thier asses and start thinking and try. at least give the old college to actually practicing medicine- eastern, western herbs and spices— if you going to dr. then learn to be a dr. stop being big pharmas puppet pushing petro chemical disease stabilizers– they dont cure- they maintain to make profits on those who suffer- psychotropics come straight from satan himself– for profit- doing much more harm than good- rural health is loaded with uneducated drs with a decade of schooling – only learning how to take orders— they must learn to be a scientist and start asking why and how and what can we do better— will licorice work instead of the 1000 dollar pill? maybe stop dropping 50lbs on boobs for cancer pics and then wonder why the cancer spread– or breaking open cancer cells as you ram your telescope up someones kazoo to see polyps or the possible cancer- breaking them open and spreading them to make a quick quartermillion before they die… crazy? naah… you just havent done the research or been with drs that cant think— still pushing teh food pyramid, flouride. Best of all the dibetic drs.. making a fortune on insulin and pills— go eat a steak every night for a month- no more needles or pills for most but hey govt will still take your tax dollars and redristubute your wealth and someone like ilmar will rob it got to just love this country
Thank you Sarah! I love your reporting style.
Another win for DJT! Very refreshing to have transparency from the start. Although, the mainstream lack of reporting on this effort is unacceptable.
Never get tired of winning!
Where does the Constitution authorize the federal government to subsidize or regulate healthcare?
This is all fine and dandy for the medical business, but gives no indication whether this helps the average “po’ old country foke’s” ability to pay for the upgraded service. I am not the first nor the last person to disparage the medical industry under Yomamacare. While it paid some of the bills, the lack of choice in accepted doctors and the massive copays gave the appearance it was easier to avoid the medical system altogether unless it was truly a matter of life or death. The automatic doubling of fees charged did not help one bit. I will be in massive debt for years to find out I don’t have lung cancer…yet. We don’t need to bail out a fraudulent healthcare system with money for new, expensive toys. We need to lessen the sticker shock of the toys they already have.
Oh, goody, more money for politicians to steal.
DOGE needs to investigate the One Big Bloated Bill.
It appears to this ill-informed taxpayer that President Trump really enjoys tossing around big bundles of money while adding to the national debt. In general, I support the President’s agenda, but he fails my test of being a fiscal conservative.