WA makes pitch to feds for $1B in rural health funding

Washington is making its bid for a billion dollars in new federal funding for rural health care.

The so-called “big, beautiful bill” that congressional Republicans approved in July included a total of $50 billion for the Rural Health Transformation Program. The money is meant to offset some of the expected damage to rural hospitals from the law’s steep cuts to Medicaid.

In Washington’s rural areas, federal spending from Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans, is set to drop over $4 billion in the next decade, according to an analysis by nonpartisan health research group KFF. Over one million Washingtonians live in rural communities.

Adults in non-metro counties in Washington have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic obstruct