Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said Friday on Newsmax that the Trump administration is making $50 billion in funding available to state governors to help fix the problem of shorter life expectancy in rural America.
"Well, to put it in perspective, that's a 50% increase in expenditures in rural America, and the reason that Congress and the president wanted this was because rural America is falling behind when it comes to health," Oz told "Wake Up America."
"Forty percent of the hospitals are in dire straits financially. Life expectancy in rural America is three years shorter than in urban America. Your ZIP code should not dictate your life expectancy. And so, we need to fix the problem, but in a sustainable way."
"The way we think about the world is don't just do a Band-Aid on a hemorrhaging artery — fix the problem," he continued. "The issues in rural healthcare revolve around shortage of workforce, inability to use technology that's widely used now in urban America, and we've got a problem with the need to resize the system."
"So this $50 billion massive infusion over the next five years will be given to governors because we believe governors know more about their states than anybody else and can make some difficult decisions to right-size the system," added Oz.
President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act included a provision that sets aside $50 billion for the Rural Health Transformation Program. As per the legislation, the funding must be used to address several issues in the rural United States' healthcare system, including increased access to services, expanding local and regional partnerships between hospitals and care providers, recruiting and training more healthcare staff, and boosting the use of technology to deliver high-quality healthcare.
However, Oz said that the mechanism for dispersing the funds lies in a competition among state governors and that "not everyone gets the same amount of money" at the end of it.
"You actually have to write an application, which is due within the next two months," he said. "We're going to give the money away by the end of the year. Our responsibility is to the American people. So if the application is poor, you're not getting as much money. But, ideally, everyone talks to each other, they work with the smartest people in their states, they come up with innovative ideas that will today improve rural healthcare, but those ideas could tomorrow help us with the rest of the healthcare system as well."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.