Trump administration awards Florida $193.7M for rural healthcare

Florida has been awarded $193.7 million in federal funds to support telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, pharmacy services, diagnostic kiosks, and community paramedicine for rural areas in Florida, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced.

The grant is $5 million-plus more than the DeSantis administration had previously announced it was requesting. The money is made possible by the Rural Health Transformation Program, a five-year, $50 billion initiative included in the One Big Beautiful Act.

“President Trump understands that every American deserves high-quality healthcare, no matter where they live,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr said in a press release last week.

“We are putting resources directly into rural communities to strengthen the health workforce, modernize infrastructure, expand access, and bring care closer to home. We are giving states the flexibility to build solutions around the people they serve, while demanding accountability for results. That is how we strengthen rural health, improve the lives of patients and families, and Make America Healthy Again.”

The press release also contains quotes from Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Sens. Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds, and a bevy of others. The announcement cites the “Working Families Tax Cuts Act,” not the OBBBA, the name President Donald Trump assigned to the legislation.

Signed by Trump on July 4, 2025, the law cut about $1 trillion from Medicaid over a decade. Florida’s former Medicaid director, Brian Meyer, told state legislators late last year that the state would see about a $3.6 billion reduction for its state-directed payment programs — mechanisms the state uses to pay hospitals, physicians, and cancer hospitals that treat the poor, elderly, and disabled.

KFF projected the Medicaid losses for Florida from a low of $10 billion to a high of $17 billion, estimates that don’t take into consideration investments from the Rural Health Transformation Grant program.

OBBBA also made substantive changes to the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP), increasing the state’s share of administrative costs for the program and, moreover, putting states with high error rates, such as Florida, potentially on the hook for contributing to the costs of the food.

The CMS press release did not mention any of the reductions to the Medicaid program. It only included praise from Republican politicos for the rural grant money.

Praise and condemnation

Republican U.S. Rep. Jimmy Patronis, who represents CD 1 in the far western Panhandle, thanked the Trump administration in the release “for prioritizing rural health care and ensuring Northwest Florida gets the support our communities deserve.”

Republican Mike Haridopolos, who represents CD 8, which includes the Space Coast, said in the release that “every Florida family deserves access to quality health care.” He added: “This funding will help Florida build a stronger healthcare system for the future.”

The nonprofit group Protect Our Care issued a statement criticizing the announcement as misleading. Protect Our Care is dedicated to making affordable, high-quality, and equitable health care a right for every Floridian.

“Last year, Donald Trump and Republicans rammed through $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Florida alone will lose more than $13.5 billion from those Medicaid cuts — making the $193 million CMS announced a pittance by comparison,” the organization’s president, Brad Woodhouse, said in a written statement.

The group claims 16 hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes in Florida have already been forced to shut down, cut services, or are at risk of doing so due to the Medicaid reductions in the federal law.