Vermont Gets $190M Second-Year Rural Health Transformation Award
Vermont is set to receive nearly $190 million in 2027 from CMS in the second year of the federal rural health transformation program, following a $195 million first-year award in 2026 that the state has finished distributing to more than 200 projects. Vermont's Medicaid and health systems director Jill Mazza Olson says the state's year-two proposal closely mirrors its first-year application, which prioritized workforce development, primary care, moving care outside hospitals, and provider care-sharing. State officials told lawmakers at an October Healthcare Reform Oversight Committee meeting that CMS requires funding to go toward the same initiatives approved in the original application, though money can shift across geographic areas, provider types, and recipients within those categories. Some lawmakers, including House Health Care Committee chair Rep. Alyssa Black, questioned how the state will spend a similar amount on largely one-time infrastructure work in year two. The five-year program totals $50 billion nationally and was created in the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act partly in response to expected Medicaid cuts affecting rural hospitals.