Politico December 7, 2025
Democrats and health advocates described the strategy as highly unusual, and some fear it could be wielded to favor political allies.
The Trump administration offered states a deal: pledge to enact White House-favored policies for a chance to win a bigger share of the $50 billion aimed at transforming the nation’s struggling rural health care systems.
The battle for those funds is now underway.
In pitches submitted in November to the Rural Health Transformation Program that Congress and President Donald Trump created in July, state officials described a crisis in rural America — an explosion of chronic illnessness, hours-long drives for basic services, a scourge of addiction — and laid out their plans for turning things around.
But in a...
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