Patients have their blood pressure and other vital signs checked during admission triage at Remote Area Medical’s mobile dental and medical clinic on October 7, 2023, in Grundy, Virginia. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – All 50 states have applied for $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program in the Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday.
States had from September 15 to Wednesday to apply for the program, which was authorized under mega package of taxes and spending cuts passed by Republicans and signed the bill by President Donald Trump. The fund aims to offset the budget impact on rural areas due to dramatic cuts to Medicaid.
But according to a nonpartisan health research organization, the momentary fund could only offset just over a third of the package’s estimated $137 billion in federal Medicaid spending in rural areas over the next decade. KFF.
In a statement Thursday accompanying the announcement, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said the program “moves us from a system that has too often failed rural America to one based on dignity, prevention and sustainability.”
Oz said that “each state that receives an approved application will receive funding so they can design what is best for their community, and CMS will be there to provide support every step of the way.”
Each state was asked to “design a plan to transform its rural health care system” and submit proposals for how it “will expand access, improve quality, and improve outcomes for patients through state-led sustainable innovation.”
The program allocates $25 billion equally to approved states for fiscal years 2026-2030. CMS says states that meet the basic criteria will then “undergo rigorous data-driven merit review” for the remaining half of the funds.
In September, when announcing the opening of the applicationCMS says the remaining half of the funds will be distributed to approved states based on “individual state metrics and applications that reflect the greatest potential and magnitude of impact on the health of rural communities.”
CMS says approved awardees will be notified by December 31.
