‘They did not accept any of our recommendations’: Rural hospital CEOs fear losing out on $50B in federal funds

Becker’s Hospital Review – Monday, January 12, 2026
By Laura Dyrda

Rural hospital leaders are raising concerns that some of the new federal rural health transformation funding could flow through state governments without ever reaching the hospitals the program was designed to support.

CMS awarded $50 billion across all 50 states through the Rural Health Transformation Program, a five-year initiative running from 2026 through 2030. The program is intended to strengthen access, infrastructure and workforce capacity in rural communities. But states are not legally required to pass the funds directly to rural hospitals and early signals from legislators in some states have hospital CEOs worried.

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