Under President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, healthcare funds for the Commonwealth have been slashed by billions over the next decade. And the money Virginia will get in its place may be limited unless a request from the Spanberger administration gets accepted.
Heidi Hertz, Director of Virginia’s federally backed nearly $190 million Rural Health Transformation Fund, is tasked with making sure those funds have the highest impact. But they must be spent in areas federal agencies have decided are rural. And the list of localities that are left out may surprise you. Among them…
“Bedford, Campbell, Amherst, Goochland. Does any area particularly pop to you that ‘huh, you didn’t realize that wasn’t rural,’” Hertz said, listing some of the excluded localities. Hertz, a Lunenburg County native, spoke at the Claude Moore Scholars & Regional Healthcare Workforce Meeting Friday morning. The rural designation has strict guidelines, so many colloquially rural localities near urban centers aren't included. Those familiar with the designations say they’ve long been moving targets for regulators.
But the Virginia list should raise some eyebrows, with Rockingham, Augusta and other counties not making the so-called rural cut. So, what does that mean for these nonqualifying areas?
“By the letter of the application, those localities would be left out," Hwetz told Radio IQ after her speech. "Funding will need to continue to go in areas that are within that rural definition, so we’d leave out some communities that we think should be able to receive that funding."
But Hertz has a plan… or a hope. She’s asked the feds to consider new maps which she says better represent rural areas and can better serve those in need.
“Allow us to have that additional overlay so that funding can then be deployed in those areas,” she said.
As to whether they will acquiesce to the request? Time will tell. But all Rural Health Transformation Funds must be allocated by the end of October.
