The Trump administration offered states a deal: pledge to enact White House-favored policies for a chance to win a bigger share of the $50 billion aimed at transforming the nation's struggling rural healthcare systems. The battle for those funds is now underway. In pitches submitted in November to the Rural Health Transformation Program that Congress and President Donald Trump created in July, state officials described a crisis in rural America — an explosion of chronic illnessness, hours-long drives for basic services, a scourge of addiction — and laid out their plans for turning things around. But in a bid to get better scores on their applications, and thus more funding, several also vowed to change their own laws — making promises, for example, to restrict low-income people from using food benefits to buy junk food or to expand telehealth, that they may not be able to keep in the coming years.
In a social media landscape shaped by hashtags, algorithms, and viral posts, nurse leaders must decide: Will they let the narrative spiral, or can they adapt and join the conversation?
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