Facing Medicaid Cuts, Oregon Seeks Rural Health Funding

By Isobel Charle, Public News Service

Oregon is in the process of applying for funds from the Rural Health Transformation Program, a federal program established by the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act to improve health care in rural communities.

Clare Pierce Wrobel, director of health policy and analytics for the Oregon Health Authority, which is spearheading the application process, said at a recent public forum regardless of whether Oregon receives the funding, it is still within the context of historic cuts to Medicaid from the budget bill.

“The federal funding through this program is not intended to offset the HR1 Medicaid cuts and in fact is a fairly small amount compared to the cuts that we are anticipating just in the state of Oregon alone,” Pierce Wrobel pointed out.

The program will provide qualifying states with at least $100 million per year for five years but Oregon is slated to lose about $5 billion in federal Medicaid funds over the same time period. The application for the Rural Health Transformation Program is due Nov. 5 with awards expected by the end of the year.

Stephanie Jarem, health policy director for the Oregon Health Authority, explained the funds are designed to support chronic disease prevention, technology innovations and access to care. Though the funds will not be able to compensate for cuts to Medicaid, she stressed the state is taking every available opportunity to support rural communities.

“The goal that we’ve laid out at this point for Oregon would be ensuring that all people and communities in rural Oregon can achieve optimum physical, mental, and social well-being at every stage of life,” Jarem emphasized.

As part of the application process, Jarem added the state collected comments from Oregonians about their priorities for supporting the state’s rural health systems. She reported the top priorities included workforce development, long travel distances to access care and shortages of emergency medical services.