A bipartisan group of 24 senators sent a letter to the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services last week announcing their support for rural health programs. The letter outlines the vital discretionary programs that help maintain the rural health safety net.
NRHA thanks you for your advocacy efforts, as your calls and emails to Congress led to the success of this bipartisan letter.
Senators Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) cosponsored the letter, and NRHA applauds them for leading the effort to provide critical support to rural safety net providers.
There are a number of small but vital discretionary programs that help form the rural health safety net. Especially in hard economic times, these programs play an important role in making sure 62 million rural Americans have access to critical primary, emergency and hospital services.
While this letter shows the depth of support for these vital programs, the efforts to ensure adequate funding are not over. As the committees in the House and Senate debate these programs, it remains critical to continually contact your representatives.
Please make your voice heard by staying connected with your elected leaders. As always, you can read the full post and keep up to date with the developments in extending critical funding at NRHA’s Rural Health Voices blog.
The final letter is available here
