How Rural Health Care is Being Impacted by the Federal Funding Landscape

Approximately 20% of people in the U.S. live in a rural area, and they face unique health challenges, such as higher rates of diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure. The recent changes to health care funding brought by the Big Beautiful Bill signed into law in early July are likely to impact rural areas adversely. Kimberly MacPherson, a health policy lecturer at UC Berkeley, highlights how rural health will be impacted. 

She says the rates of individuals on Medicaid are generally higher in rural areas, so the cuts to funding are bound to have a disproportionate impact upon these people. For example, MacPherson points out that the spike in health insurance due to the ending of the tax credits for people who aren’t able to get sufficient cover from their employers is likely to make a large number of people in rural areas to become uninsured due to cost constraints. 

Additionally, the new $100,000 fee targeting applicants seeking an H-1B visa could have an outsized impact on rural health care facilities. This is because those areas already have chronic staff shortages and making it more expensive for health care professionals trained abroad to get visas will further reduce the number of skilled professionals available to get jobs in rural areas. MacPherson says there are efforts to obtain an exemption to this fee for foreign nationals seeking employment in rural areas, but nothing concrete has materialized. 

The escalation of efforts to deport illegal immigrants also puts additional strain on rural health care. The hostility to foreigners reduces the allure of seeking employment in the U.S., and rural areas which already have their own challenges are bound to become even less attractive to badly needed health care professionals. Furthermore, the fear of being caught up in ICE raids will keep more rural-based immigrants away from health care facilities, which will prevent them from getting needed care. 

Health care facilities in rural areas already operate on small margins and the tariff environment isn’t making matters any better. As costs of medical supplies increase, many hospitals are likely to go out of business or become unable to offer many needed services, such as emergency care and maternity care. Residents of rural areas will therefore go without these crucial services or be compelled to travel long distances to access them, further increasing the cost burden upon these people. 

Many have said that the American health care system is in crisis, and rural areas often take the brunt of the issues faced by the system. It is hard to imagine what hurdles entities like Astiva Health have to navigate in exercising their mandate to serve racial minorities in large states like California. The challenges they face could easily be as complex as those faced in rural areas. 

NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Astiva Health are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/Astiva 

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