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The Trump administration on Monday announced the formal launch of its $50 billion rural health fund created through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Beginning next year, states will receive money from the Rural Health Transformation Program averaging around $200 million and ranging between $145 million to $281 million. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced in November that all 50 states had applied to the fund.
“Over the last roughly six weeks, there’s been an intense review of these applications, and it was based on three major criteria,” Oz said in a briefing Monday.
Half of the $50 billion fund will be distributed to states equally. Oz said the remaining half will be distributed according to three criteria: 50 percent based on ruralness, 20 percent on state polices and the remaining 30 percent on what the states’ improvement plans are.
“If the state says they’re going to do these things as part of their policy, and they don’t do that, then we do have the ability to claw back the financial commitment that would have accompanied those state policy actions,” he stated.
Critics of the tax cut and spending megabill argued it would decimate rural health with its changes to Medicaid. The health policy nonprofit KFF estimated Medicaid spending in rural areas could drop by $137 billion over the coming years as a result of the legislation.
According to the National Rural Health Association, roughly 20 percent of adults and 40 percent of children in rural areas rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
“This historic investment puts local hospitals, clinics, and health workers in control of their communities’ healthcare. Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, rural Americans will now have affordable healthcare close to home, free from bureaucratic obstacles,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement.