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RFK Jr., Dr. Oz: Medicaid didn't fix rural health care crisis. We are.

10 12
08.01.2026

President Donald Trump declared in his first inaugural address in 2017, "The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer.”

Now, thanks to the president’s working families tax cut legislation, we’re helping make good on that promise by awarding $50 billion to forgotten rural communities in all 50 states under the new Rural Health Transformation (RHT) Program.

More than 60 million Americans living in rural communities experience poorer health outcomes and higher rates of chronic disease than their urban and suburban peers. For too long, the government has failed to deliver the resources they urgently need.

For decades, lobbyists, think tankers and health system executives who shape our health policy spent as little time as possible in “flyover country” and have instead steered resources toward big cities. Meanwhile, families in rural areas make do with a patchwork of outdated, understaffed and underfunded health care options.

The RHT Program addresses this disparity with a once-in-a-generation investment, empowering states to boost health care recruitment and retention efforts, train existing workforces, introduce new technologies, expand telehealth, empower patients,........

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