Kimberly Adams

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Hello, everyone.

I'm Kimberly Adams.

Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us.

Last summer, when negotiations were playing out over the GOP's big tax and spending bill, you'll know it and love it, is the one big beautiful bill act.

States and health care advocates raised alarm over the roughly one trillion dollars in cuts to Medicaid that were in the legislation.

Now, even though that total is over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that's still a huge hit.

And early data are showing that those cuts are going to hit particularly hard in rural communities.

So in response to that, Congress pulled together a $50 billion pot of money for rural health care that's going out over the next five years.

It's called the Rural Health Transformation Program.

And that made it into the final version of the bill.

And some of that $50 billion in funding is finally starting to roll out.

So to help make us smart about this, we are joined by Arielle Zients.

She's a rural health care correspondent for KFF Health News and based in South Dakota.