Big companies position themselves for payday from $50B federal rural health fund

Source: CBS News

April 27, 2026 / 5:00 AM EDT / KFF Health News


Tory Starr is worried about the people who get medical care at Open Door Community Health Centers along California's North Coast. "They're the folks that work at restaurants. They're the teacher's aides," said Starr, a registered nurse who became Open Door's chief executive more than six years ago. Those patients, he said, are "really the heart and soul of rural America."

He said if his remote health centers don't get a share of the billions of dollars Congress earmarked to transform health care in rural America, patients may soon lose services. About 50% of Open Door's 60,000 patients are on Medicaid, the joint state and federal insurance program that, together with the related Children's Health Insurance Program, covers about 76 million people with low incomes or disabilities.

When Congress approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer, it cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade. Now, Starr hopes the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, which was part of the same bill, will help keep his patients covered. Months after federal leaders announced that all 50 states won first-year awards, ranging from $147 million for New Jersey to $281 million for Texas, state plans reveal that a heavy dose of prescribed spending will go to companies that can increase the use of electronic health records, strengthen cybersecurity, and improve state and health system technology platforms.

Yet, small community health care providers, such as Open Door, may find they are sharing the billions with an army of corporate giants before it reaches their patients.

Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/big-companies-federal-rural-health-fund/

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Meaning nothing for actual care or hospital/clinical resources, but for tech, where the indigent 45-voter can have the best and most bigly records about the ailments they can't afford to treat, and don't have access to medical providers to help diagnose.