Wyoming officials say they have a plan to make five years of upcoming grants from a new $50 billion federal rural health program last “forever.”
The state could tackle rural health issues long into the future by investing its awards from the Rural Health Transformation Program, the director of Wyoming’s health department, Stefan Johansson, told state lawmakers. But it’s unclear whether the maneuver will pass muster with the federal government.
If approved, Wyoming’s Rural Health Transformation Perpetuity fund could provide $28.5 million for the state to spend every year, according to materials presented to lawmakers.
Wyoming would spend the money on scholarships for health students and incentive payments to help keep small hospitals and rural ambulance services afloat.
“I have lots of questions. It seems very clever,” said Kevin Bennett, director of the South Carolina Center for Rural and Primary Healthcare. “It’s a wild idea.”
Bennett said the big question is whether the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which manages the new program, will approve of Wyoming’s plan.
If it does, he said, “it’s really an interesting way to keep things going” — one with potential benefits as well as risks.
Congressional Republicans created the Rural Health Transformation Program as a last-minute sweetener in their One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer. The funding was intended to offset concerns about the outsize fallout anticipated in rural communities from the new law, which is expected to reduce Medicaid spending by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.
Since 2010, 152 rural hospitals in the U.S. have shuttered completely or stopped offering inpatient services, according to the Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina. The guidelines for the federal rural health program say states can use only 15 percent of their funding for direct payments to providers, including hospitals.
CMS officials announced first-year funding on Dec. 29 after scoring states’ applications. States had until Jan. 30 to submit revised budgets and other documents that align with their grant awards. CMS has until March 1 to review and approve the updated material.