Today’s White House memo “The One Big Beautiful Bill is a Historic Investment in Rural Healthcare” outlines in detail how the President’s landmark legislation makes historic investments in vulnerable communities to ensure healthcare options are made sustainable for Americans who rely on these options for their care.

TRANSFORMING RURAL CARE WITH HISTORIC INVESTMENTS AND RADICAL TRANSPARENCY

The Rural Health Transformation Program will provide unprecedented new funding to states for a range of uses designed to make rural healthcare more effective and sustainable for the long term. Collaborating with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), states must submit detailed rural health transformation plans on how these resources will be put to work improving access to healthcare providers in their communities and ultimately improving health outcomes. CMS will monitor implementation and hold states accountable to this plan to ensure resources are appropriately distributed and going to the most deserving, not the most politically connected.

ENSURING SUSTAINABILITY OF RURAL CARE BY ADDRESSING SYSTEMIC CHALLENGES

Unlike smaller programs that have been traditionally the main mechanisms to support rural care, the Rural Health Transformation Program is uniquely designed to promote innovation and long-term sustainability of rural healthcare.

Rural hospitals suffer from chronic challenges with extremely low patient volume. They have both smaller bed counts than urban hospitals and occupancy rates that are much lower (37%) than those of their urban counterparts (62%). Therefore, when programs link funding to reimbursements for services provided—as these legacy programs do—these programs do not promote long-term sustainability as the overall volume of services provided in these facilities remains low. In other words, these programs do not actually provide hospitals with investments that would help them sustain themselves.

Distinct from these other programs, the Rural Health Transformation Program is designed to promote innovation in payment and flexibility. These funds can be used to help these facilities make investments necessary to better meet the needs of the communities they serve and become more sustainable over the long term.

HEALTH INDUSTRY PROMOTES FLAWED ANALYSES TO HIDE THE REAL POSITIVE EFFECTS OF THE ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL

Rural hospitals only receive 7% of Medicaid hospital spending. Yet, industry leaders and lobbyists continue to cry foul, and fearmonger that the law puts rural care facilities at risk when in actuality the OBBB delivers historic investments into the Rural Health Transformation Program to ensure underserved rural hospitals are strengthened, a monumental victory that should be celebrated after years of neglect and lack of financial support.

The disparity between urban and rural hospitals clearly shows how the waste, fraud, and abuse that proliferated under the Biden Administration did not benefit the most vulnerable hospitals. The OBBB aggressively goes after that waste, fraud, and abuse by enforcing eligibility requirements, prioritizing work over welfare, and putting Americans first by removing non-citizens and ending financing gimmicks used to subsidize coverage for illegal immigrants. This momentous effort to combat waste, fraud, and abuse is what allowed Congress and the Trump Administration to make this historic investment in rationalizing our health care system by actually ensuring new healthcare dollars reach facilities in vulnerable communities to help make them sustainable for good.

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