People who rely on the federal Affordable Care Act marketplace to choose health insurance for 2026 must contend with a host of challenges as the open enrollment period begins. Those include hikes in premiums and other fees, the potential ending of tax credits that made payments more affordable, and fewer options in some areas.
That’s as a growing number of residents have used the marketplace. More than 300,000 Wisconsinites, or about 5% of the state’s population, signed up for plans last year at HealthCare.gov — more than double the enrollment from about a decade ago.
If you’re feeling anxious or overwhelmed while considering your options, here is some information that might help.
It began Nov. 1 and runs through Jan. 15. Choose a plan by Dec. 15 if you want coverage to kick in by Jan. 1.
Here’s some bad news: Premiums in Wisconsin will increase on average by 17.4% next year, a Wisconsin Watch analysis shows. If it’s any consolation, that’s less than the estimated 26% national hike as reported by KFF, a health policy nonprofit.
“Wisconsin is better than the national average,” said Adam VanSpankeren, navigator program manager of Covering Wisconsin, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Extension program that helps people enroll in publicly funded health care. “Don’t be afraid to look at your plan and see what’s available because you’ll probably be able to find an affordable option.”
Premiums for most plans will increase by 9.4% to 19%. Premiums for a few outlying plans will surge by over 33.3%.
The increases depend on where you live. For example, the new benchmark plan in Milwaukee County will be 44% more expensive than the 2025 benchmark. That’s compared to an increase of just 8.13% in La Crosse and Trempealeau counties.
A benchmark plan refers to the second-cheapest Silver-tier plan, an Affordable Care Act concept used to calculate subsidies to help a marketplace enrollee pay their premiums.
Benchmark plans in Sawyer and Ashland counties will become the state’s most expensive next year, with 27-year-olds paying premiums of $637.57 per month. The two counties also stand out when comparing the average plan costs. The state’s cheapest benchmark plans will be found in Kewaunee, Brown, Door, Shawano, Oconto, Marinette and Manitowoc counties, where a 27-year-old will pay $444.58 monthly.
Statewide prices for Common Ground Health Cooperative will increase an average of 16.6% in 2026, including more noticeable hikes of at least 30% in Jefferson and Walworth counties. The company attributed the changes to rising health care costs and a changing federal landscape.
“By updating our rates, we can ensure the sustainability of our marketplace product and continue to deliver high-quality care to our members,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch.
More than 86% of Wisconsin enrollees last year received advanced premium tax credits that lowered the cost of premiums by an average of $585, according to KFF.
But one major subsidy, the enhanced premium tax credit, introduced in 2021, is set to expire at the end of 2025. Democrats in Congress have called for the credits to be extended in a debate that’s central to the ongoing federal government shutdown.
The tax credit’s expiration would result in lower reimbursements for eligible households. Households with an income of more than four times the federal poverty level will no longer be eligible for any federal tax credit.
“How much Wisconsinites’ healthcare coverage costs will increase varies depending on age, income, plan selection, and available insurers in each county, but many Wisconsinites will see their premiums increase significantly, with seniors and middle-class families seeing some of the largest increases if Republicans in Congress do not extend enhanced tax credits under Affordable Care Act,” Evers wrote in an Oct. 27 press release.
A 60-year-old couple making around $85,000 in Barron County could see premiums skyrocket over 800%, with an annual increase of over $33,000 in costs, according to calculations by the Insurance Commissioner Nathan Houdek’s office. The same couple living in Dane County could see premiums triple, paying nearly $20,000 extra a year.
VanSpankeren says to examine your options as soon as you can, with help from insurance agents or navigators such as those at Covering Wisconsin.
“That (cost increase) does not mean be scared or anxious or stay away from the marketplace,” VanSpankeren said. “It means you’ve got to look again, and you’ve got to do your homework and work with a navigator if you need to.”
If you’re looking for a marketplace plan, it’s a good time to estimate your income for the year, VanSpankeren added, even if that seems difficult. If your income changes over the year, you can report that later.
“You’re just going to do your best, and that’s all anybody can do,” he said. “But really take that extra time to calculate it, however close you can, it’s going to help you a lot in terms of making sure your plan is affordable and making sure you’re not paying back in tax credits that you shouldn’t have gotten.”
He also suggested considering how often you expect to visit the doctor’s office over the year and whether you anticipate any major procedures. That will help determine what plan makes most sense to choose.
Residents in most counties will find fewer plan options as companies retreat from certain markets. Data from Houdek’s office show that 46 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties lost at least one insurance company. Up to four companies will stop serving Winnebago, Racine, Calumet, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Outagamie, Manitowoc and Kenosha counties.
Two out of three providers currently serving Fond du Lac County have announced exits, leaving residents with just one option.
VanSpankeren worries dwindling options will push some residents out of the marketplace, leaving them unable to access any existing subsidies — potentially falling prey to providers that exploit people in need.
“This would be an opportunity for the good agents and brokers of Wisconsin to rise to meet that need and say, ‘Hey, there are these other things you’re looking for. This particular hospital, this plan actually covers it. Let’s talk about your options,’” VanSpankeren said.
Dean Health Plan by Medica, Fond du Lac’s remaining insurance provider, is “committed to being a stable presence in the community and supporting those who may need to choose a new plan,” spokesperson Ricky Thiesse wrote in an email.
The company encouraged residents to confirm whether their preferred doctors and hospitals are in-network, or if they need to select new providers to receive full benefits.
A majority (61%) of the health plans in Wisconsin will feature higher deductibles next year, increasing out-of-pocket costs before insurance starts paying. The most dramatic deductible increase will be $2,800.
Some providers are also adjusting co-pays and coinsurance rates to reduce company costs. That could require enrollees to pay more per doctor’s visit or spend more on certain drugs.
Catastrophic plans, a federal marketplace alternative, commonly feature low monthly premiums but very high deductibles before providers pay for care. They are seen as affordable ways to protect only against worst-case scenarios, like getting seriously sick or injured, according to HealthCare.gov. Catastrophic plans are open only to people under 30 or those who qualify for a hardship or affordability exemption.
But they are also getting more expensive next year, with premiums surging an average of 57.8%. Catastrophic plans make up the top six plans with the biggest premium increases in 2026.
VanSpankeren suggests comparing a catastrophic plan with Bronze- or Silver-tier plans that might offer more comprehensive coverage.
While individual comparisons will vary, a single 27-year-old enrolling in a catastrophic plan in 2026 would save an average of just $38 monthly compared to a Bronze-tiered plan.
“We don’t choose plans for people, and we don’t steer people towards plans. But I would say it is very rare for anybody that a navigator works with to choose a catastrophic plan,” VanSpankeren said.
Want to see how we crunched the data? Read our data analysis process here.
How to navigate the health care marketplace as premiums rise and options shrink is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
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Wisconsin voters line up outside of a Milwaukee polling place on Nov. 5, 2024. Wisconsin (Andy Manis | Getty Images)
Democrats are euphoric about Tuesday’s elections, in which voters across the country delivered a resounding rebuke to Republicans and President Donald Trump. “The Democratic Party is back!” Ken Martin, Democratic National Committee chair, declared in a post-election press call with other national party leaders.
Democratic wins in governors’ races in Virginia and New Jersey, the mayoral race in New York City, state Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania, even a historic victory that broke the Republican supermajority in the Mississippi legislature, along with a bevy of downballot victories in historically Republican districts, showed voters have had enough of the misery inflicted by the MAGA right.
In a scene familiar to Wisconsinites, Pennsylvania voters beat back an effort by a MAGA billionaire to buy their state supreme court. “People don’t want corporate control of the courts,” Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chair Eugene DePasquale said of the millions wasted on that race by TikTok billionaire Jeff Yass — a repeat of Elon Musk’s failed bid to buy a friendly majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
The results are a concrete sign that there is a political price associated with the chaos Trump and his GOP enablers have unleashed, sending federal agents to terrorize American cities, driving up health care costs and inflicting unnecessary suffering and hunger on Americans during the longest government shutdown in history.
Young men, Black and Latino voters, working-class people — all the demographic groups that abandoned Democrats in 2024 returned in droves on Tuesday. As the Democrats celebrated their wins, they also seemed to concede that they were benefitting from the mess Republicans have made of governing. People are hurting, their outlook is grim, and they are in the mood to throw out the party in power after just six months.
Democrats need to form an aggressive, unified opposition to champion the will of those voters and not just take their support for granted. And Republicans had better re-examine their unwavering loyalty to Trump.
So far, in Wisconsin, Republican members of Congress have not signaled that they care about the catastrophic effects of Trump’s policies on their constituents.
In an interview with “UpFront” on WISN 12 News on Sunday, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden wouldn’t say if he supports extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, even as Wisconsinites are receiving the news that without the subsidies their premiums are set to skyrocket by 45% to 800% depending on where in the state they live.
Van Orden, who supports a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, repeatedly declared on “UpFront” that he “won’t be held hostage” by Democrats who have made preventing a huge spike in health care costs for people who buy insurance on the ACA marketplace — more than 310,000 of them in Wisconsin — a condition of their votes to reopen the government. Nor has he been willing to say whether he supports or opposes the Trump administration’s decision to withhold food assistance from 700,000 Wisconsinites during the shutdown.
U.S. Rep Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor, also supports repealing the Affordable Care Act and this month called on Republicans to “hold firm” against extending ACA tax credits, repeating the lie that Democrats are shutting down the government because they want to give health care to “illegal aliens.”
U.S. Rep Bryan Steil told “UpFront” that the Trump administration is in “a very difficult position” as it makes the decision to fire thousands of federal workers during the shutdown. He also claimed he might support extending ACA subsidies, but only after the shutdown ends, and if there are “significant changes to that program to root out waste, fraud and abuse.”
Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, took the opportunity, as health care subsidies lapse and insurance premiums spike, to hold a hearing Thursday on the “harms” caused by extending health care coverage to millions of Americans through the Affordable Care Act.
Is it any wonder that voters are not thrilled with how the party that holds complete control in Washington is governing?
What’s significant about Tuesday’s election is that it puts everyone on notice that voters will push back.
Over and over, during the Democrats’ Wednesday press conference, various national leaders eagerly declared that theirs is the party of “affordability.” But Martin acknowledged that his party had lost touch with working class voters worried about making ends meet. He said Democrats “didn’t focus on that anxiety enough over the years.” and that they have to “give working class people the sense that we’re fighting for them.”
It doesn’t take a political genius to see the vulnerability in the wretched excesses of the Trump administration, which is forcing children to go hungry while throwing a lavish “Great Gatsby” party at Mar-a-Lago and building a massive, gilded ballroom at the White House.
If nothing else, Democrats are the populist alternative by default. But there also seems to be a sincere effort underway to build a democratic resistance that will fight for most Americans against the MAGA oligarchs who are liquidating civil society and sucking up the common wealth of the nation to enrich themselves.
Martin and the other Dems on the Wednesday call trumpeted the importance of state-level politics. “The path back to building Democratic power runs through state legislatures,” declared Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, adding, “the center of gravity has moved to the states.”
Martin agreed. “I believe this party has ignored building power at the state level for too long,” he said. “We cannot just build federal power.”
The stars of this new strategy are Democratic governors — the most popular Democratic politicians in America, according to the panel, which made a passing mention of the importance of the 2026 Wisconsin governor’s race. Certainly Virginia Democrats, who won back both the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, gave hope to Wisconsin Dems who are hoping to do the same.
But how much the national party will engage in Wisconsin and who will emerge from a crowded field of Democratic hopefuls in the first open election for governor here in 15 years is very much up in the air.
On Thursday, at a gubernatorial candidate forum covered by Baylor Spears, candidates were asked to name the greatest threat to Wisconsin’s economy. Few had a simple, appealing answer that connected to most voters’ most immediate concerns — skyrocketing prices, a shredding safety net and the disappearing prospect of shared prosperity.
Tuesday’s elections showed that we still have a democracy, that voters have a say in how the government is run, and that they won’t put up with an endless cycle of abuse.
That should embolden everyone who is shocked and appalled by what is happening to our country — including those Wisconsin Republicans who have so far been afraid to criticize Trump, as well as the Democrats who need to point the way to a better future.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
A cancer patient’s medical bills are spread on a kitchen table in a home in Salem, Va., in this 2011 file photo. A new Trump administration rule would override more than a dozen state laws that shield consumers’ credit reports from medical debt. (Photo by Don Petersen/Associated Press)
A new Trump administration rule issued late last month would override state laws that prevent consumers’ credit reports from including medical debt, potentially weakening financial protections for millions of Americans.
In recent years, more than a dozen states have taken steps to keep medical debt from hurting residents’ credit scores, passing laws with bipartisan support. But new guidance from the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau repeals a Biden-era rule that allowed states to impose their own bans. The Trump administration has interpreted the 1970 Fair Credit Reporting Act to say that it overrides state laws around reporting debt to credit bureaus.
American consumers had at least $220 billion in unpaid medical bills in 2024, according to an analysis from research nonprofit KFF. About 6% of American adults, or 14 million people, owe more than $1,000 in medical debt.
“Medical debt is a tremendous weight keeping so many families from financial security, and, unlike most other forms of debt, it’s not a choice,” North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, said last month in a statement announcing that a new state program had wiped out more than $6.5 billion in medical debt for more than 25 million North Carolinians.
People rarely plan to take on debt from medical care, as they do when they borrow money to buy a house or car. A one-time or short-term expense such as a single hospital stay causes about two-thirds of all medical debt, according to a 2022 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report.
And even though most Americans have health insurance, many get stuck with unexpected medical bills because their policies have high deductibles or don’t fully cover some treatments, procedures or drugs. People in worse health and those living with a disability are more likely to report medical debt, as are middle-aged adults, Black Americans, and people with low and middle incomes, according to KFF.
In the past two years, a dozen states have passed laws forbidding medical debt from appearing on credit reports, bringing the total number of states with such laws to 14: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
Another five states — Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Nevada and Utah — limit how and when medical debt can appear on credit reports, according to the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund.
Republican and Democratic legislators in other states, including Michigan, Ohio and South Dakota, have introduced similar bills this year.
Now the new state laws face an uncertain future. In January, while Biden was still in office, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule prohibiting credit reporting agencies from reporting medical debt in certain circumstances. Credit bureaus and credit unions sued to stop the rule. The incoming Trump administration agreed with the plaintiffs and declined to defend the rule in court, so a federal judge blocked it.
Maine state Sen. Donna Bailey, a Democrat, said in a September statement that Maine’s new law barring medical debt from appearing on consumer reports was even more important in light of the demise of the federal rule.
“Although Americans no longer have the federal protection, Mainers will continue to have protection here in our state,” she said in September. “When we go to the hospital for medical care, especially for emergencies, any debt that we take on should not hold us back from buying a car, renting a home or taking out a loan.”
But the Trump administration’s latest order would render state laws such as Maine’s moot.
Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Deysi Camacho shops at the Feeding South Florida food pantry on Oct. 27, 2025 in Pembroke Park, Florida. Feeding South Florida was preparing for a possible surge in demand as SNAP benefits were delayed and reduced due to the government shutdown. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats left their Thursday caucus lunch tight-lipped as an agreement to end the government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history at 37 days, remained elusive.
Republicans have floated a deal that includes the reinstatement of federal workers laid off by President Donald Trump, but no votes were scheduled on a spending bill as of late Thursday afternoon. There was some speculation senators could work through the weekend.
The chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, GOP Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said negotiations are still underway. But she said as part of a deal, she supported the rehiring of the thousands of federal workers the Trump administration fired in its Reductions in Force, or RIFs, during the government shutdown that began Oct. 1.
“Those who were RIF’d during the shutdown should be recalled,” she said. “We’re still negotiating that language.”
Emboldened by this week’s Election Day victories, where Democrats swept major local and state races, Senate Democrats are seeking to use that momentum as leverage to get Republicans to also agree to a health care deal to end the government shutdown.
While Democrats have pushed to extend tax credits for health care, Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Thursday that the best he can offer is a vote on extending those subsidies, which expire this year.
The coming expiration has resulted in millions of people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace receiving notices of a drastic spike in premium costs.
“I can’t speak for the House, and obviously I can’t guarantee an outcome here, and they know that,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said. “I think the clear path forward here, with regard to the ACA issue, is they get a vote, and we open up the government, and we head down to the White House and sit down with the president and talk about it.”
Democrats that represent states with a high population of federal employees, such as Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, are also seeking to strike a deal on RIFs. A federal judge blocked those Reductions in Force last month.
Kaine told reporters Wednesday that those negotiations are occurring with the White House.
“It is an item that is being discussed with the president, with the White House,” Kaine said.
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has stressed that unless there is a commitment from House Speaker Mike Johnson and President Donald Trump to extend health care tax credits, Democrats should not agree to pass a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government.
Senators are still scheduled to leave Capitol Hill late Thursday and be out next week on recess for the Veterans Day holiday.
But a couple Senate Republicans said late Thursday afternoon that lawmakers might stay in Washington, D.C. into Friday or later.
“I think they’re trying to work towards a vote tomorrow, maybe through the weekend. I’m pro-through the weekend,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said in an interview following a GOP lunch meeting.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., likened the situation to a “goat rodeo,” which is a hyperbolic phrase to refer to a disaster.
“We’re probably going to have a vote tomorrow, and then we will get on, and then we will know where we are, and we’ll know whether the Democrats are serious or not,” Kennedy said, adding that he was unsure exactly what they were voting on.
Following their Thursday caucus lunch, Democrats did not seem closer to an internal agreement on how to move forward with resolving the government shutdown as they left their huddle.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats had a “very good, productive meeting.”
One of the top negotiators for Democrats on finding a deal, New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, declined to comment.
Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman threw his hands up as he left the room.
“I don’t know how productive it was,” Fetterman, who has voted with Republicans to move legislation to reopen the government, said.
Some Democrats said they were unified, such as New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim, Michigan’s Gary Peters and Connecticut’s Chris Murphy, a top appropriator.
Peters did not specify what issue Democrats were unified on.
“I don’t want to get into that, but it was an encouraging caucus (meeting) because there’s a great deal of unity as we came out,” he said.
Additionally, a new continuing resolution, or CR, is needed, as the stopgap funding measure would have funded the government until Nov. 21, now just two weeks away.
The House, which Johnson has kept in recess since September, would also need to be called back to pass a new version of a CR.
As the government shutdown continues, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned this week that if funding is not restored, flights will need to be reduced by 10% in some air spaces due to a shortage of air traffic controllers, who have worked without pay for weeks.
The government shutdown has led to millions of federal workers furloughed or required to work without pay and has created uncertainty for vulnerable people who rely on food assistance and heating services, as well as stoppages in vital child development and nutrition programs.
In an effort to force Democrats to vote to reopen the government, the Trump administration has tried to withhold Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits for 42 million people, until a court ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to release those benefits.
Frustrated with the government shutdown, Trump has also tried to pressure Republicans into doing away with the Senate’s filibuster, which requires a 60-vote threshold, but Thune has resisted those calls.
Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said during a Thursday press conference that he’s “not promising anyone anything” when it comes to a House vote on extending health care tax subsidies.
Johnson criticized Senate Democrats for wanting a guarantee that the House would also take a vote on extending the ACA taxes.
“That’s ridiculous,” he said.
House progressives said they have one message for Senate Democrats: “Do not cave,” as Rep. Pramila Jayapal put it during a Thursday morning press conference outside the U.S. House.
“Any deal must secure the extension of the ACA tax credits and ensure health care for the American people with agreement from the House, the Senate and the White House, full stop. We have the momentum,” the Washington state Democrat said.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., who publicly confronted Johnson during a press conference Wednesday, said, “We require a deal that actually addresses the health care crisis, not that promises to think about addressing it down the road in two weeks, with concepts of a plan.”
“Sadly, at this point in time, even I say it’s impossible to trust our Republican colleagues to honor their promises and their obligations,” Houlahan said.
April Verette, president of the labor union SEIU, which represents roughly 2 million members, spoke alongside Jayapal and Houlahan and praised Democrats as “courageous.”
“We are determined to say ‘Stick with this fight’ because righteousness, morality is on our side,” Verette said.
The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration in a case over a policy to allow only sex assigned at birth to be used on a passport application. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday allowed President Donald Trump’s administration to continue carrying out, for now, its policy requiring that passports only list a person’s sex assigned at birth.
The nation’s highest court paused a lower court order that temporarily barred the administration from enforcing the policy, codified in an executive order Trump signed in January.
The executive order made it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female” and called on the State Department to “implement changes to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, visas, and Global Entry cards, accurately reflect the holder’s sex.”
Under then-President Joe Biden, the State Department allowed people to “select an ‘X’ as their gender marker on their U.S. passport application.”
In the unsigned court order, the majority noted that “displaying passport holders’ sex at birth no more offends equal protection principles than displaying their country of birth — in both cases, the Government is merely attesting to a historical fact without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, indicating a 6-3 decision.
Jackson, who authored the dissent, wrote that the court “fails to spill any ink considering the plaintiffs, opting instead to intervene in the Government’s favor without equitable justification, and in a manner that permits harm to be inflicted on the most vulnerable party.”
“This Court has once again paved the way for the immediate infliction of injury without adequate (or, really, any) justification,” she wrote. “Because I cannot acquiesce to this pointless but painful perversion of our equitable discretion, I respectfully dissent.”
In February, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the administration on behalf of seven transgender and nonbinary people over the suspension of the Biden-era policy.
A federal judge in Massachusetts in June temporarily blocked the administration from enforcing the policy. The judge had issued an earlier preliminary injunction in April that applied to six of the case’s plaintiffs.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit kept in place the district court’s order in September, prompting the administration to ask the Supreme Court to intervene.
Patients have their blood pressure checked and other vitals taken at an intake triage at a Remote Area Medical mobile dental and medical clinic on Oct. 07, 2023 in Grundy, Virginia. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — All 50 states have applied for the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program in Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday.
States had from Sept. 15 through Wednesday to apply for the program, which was authorized under the mega tax and spending cut package passed by Republicans and signed into law by President Donald Trump. The fund is intended to offset the budget impacts on rural areas due to sweeping Medicaid cuts.
However, the temporary fund could only offset a little more than one-third of the package’s estimated $137 billion cut to federal Medicaid spending in rural areas over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan health research organization KFF.
Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Dr. Mehmet Oz said the program “moves us from a system that has too often failed rural America to one built on dignity, prevention, and sustainability” in a Thursday statement alongside the announcement.
Oz said “every state with an approved application will receive funding so it can design what works best for its communities — and CMS will be there providing support every step of the way.”
Each state was asked to “design a plan for transforming its rural health care system” and outline in proposals how they “intend to expand access, enhance quality, and improve outcomes for patients through sustainable, state-driven innovation.”
The program allocates $25 billion equally to approved states between fiscal years 2026 and 2030. CMS said states meeting the baseline criteria will then “undergo a rigorous, data-driven merit review” for the remaining half of the funds.
In September, when announcing the application opening, CMS said the remaining half of funds would be administered to approved states based on “individual state metrics and applications that reflect the greatest potential for and scale of impact on the health of rural communities.”
CMS said approved awardees will be notified by Dec. 31.
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