By Michael Moline | Editor in Chief
“Last year, Donald Trump and Republicans rammed through $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid to pay for tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. Florida alone will lose more than $13.5 billion from those Medicaid cuts — making the $193 million CMS announced a pittance by comparison.” — Brad Woodhouse, Protect Our Care
The rural health grant is $5 million-plus more than what the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis said it hoped to receive from the Trump administration. (Getty Images)
The grant is $5 million-plus more than the DeSantis administration had previously announced it was requesting. The money is made possible by the Rural Health Transformation Program, a five-year, $50 billion initiative included in the One Big Beautiful Act. Florida Republicans hailed the grant, but the nonprofit Protect Our Care said the announcement was misleading. Sixteen hospitals, clinics, and nursing homes in Florida have already been forced to shut down, cut services, or are at risk of doing so due to the Medicaid reductions in the federal law, it said.
The Trump administration is delaying until early next year implementation of a U.S. customs rule threatening the supply of vital prescription drugs imported by millions of Americans. Under the rule, Customs and Border Protection and the FDA will require coding on packages that makes it easier to know what’s in them. “Why would you want to cut off this massive revenue source?” wondered Ken Hunter of the Campaign for Personal Prescription Importation. “Why would they want to cut people off from lifesaving medications two weeks before midterms?”
Election monitors, who watch polling places and election officials for compliance with federal voting rights laws, have long been a feature of U.S. elections, but the Trump administration’s assertion of federal authority over state-run elections have left many Democrats and even some Republicans uneasy about this year’s expansive effort. The administration won’t say where they’re going until election day.
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