New Farm Action Report Warns Of "Double Talk" on Rural Healthcare

Farm Action Fund is warning rural Americans to look at the "whole ledger" when it comes to federal health-care spending. The group has released a New Report comparing recent rural health investments with Medicaid cuts under the 2025 reconciliation law.

Farm Action Fund says nearly $25 million in new assistance is going to 132 rural hospitals, while the Rural Health Transformation Program provides $50 billion over five years. But the group says those investments must be weighed against an estimated $911 billion in federal Medicaid reductions over ten years, with about $137 billion potentially affecting rural areas.

“Rural Americans deserve more than a press release announcing another pot of money,” said Joe Maxwell, co-author of the report and a leader of Farm Action Fund’s Rural Independence Initiative. “They deserve to know what Washington is putting into their communities, what Washington is taking away, and what the bottom line will be for their families, their hospitals and their local economies as hospitals and clinics continue to decline in our rural communities. I now have to travel over 50 miles in rural Missouri to get an appointment."

Farm Action Fund is calling for a nonpartisan Rural Health Net-Impact Standard to track Medicaid funding, hospital finances, access to care and rural health jobs. Farm Action Fund said standard should provide a state-by-state accounting of:

Changes in federal Medicaid funding
Medicaid enrollment and coverage
Rural Health Transformation funding
Provider reimbursement and uncompensated care
The number and financial condition of rural hospitals
Access to emergency, inpatient, maternity and other essential services
Rural health-care employment and economic impacts.

“Washington should be judged by outcomes, not announcements,” Maxwell said. “If federal policy is making rural communities healthier and more economically resilient, show us the numbers. If it is leaving rural families with fewer hospitals, fewer providers and less access to care, rural Americans deserve to know that too.”

Click Here to read Farm Action's entire report.

If you have a story idea for the PNW Ag Network, call (509) 547-9791, or e-mail glenn.vaagen@townsquaremedia.com