NRHA recently released an advocacy toolkit on how to prioritize rural health advocacy during an election year amidst changes in local and federal congressional offices. Additionally, NRHA Chief Policy Officer Carrie Cochran-McClain recently appeared on Michelle Rathman’s Rural Impact podcast to discuss top-of-mind rural health policy issues.

At the Appalachian Regional Commission’s 2024 annual conference, Advancing Appalachia, Federal Co-Chair Gayle Manchin announced the latest round of investments in multi-state projects through our Appalachian Regional Initiative for Stronger Economies (ARISE): $16.9M to five projects in 10 states.

These projects will benefit at least 270 counties and bring together 60 regional partners — including one of Appalachia’s federally recognized Tribal Communities, the Seneca Nation of Indians. Check out each new investment below! 🌄

$8M to Save the Children Federation to grow the childcare and early education workforce 🏫

$4.5M to the Beneficial Electrification League to modernize electricty infrastructure 💡

$3.9M to the Appalachian Investors Alliance to establish funds for small businesses 🏦

$500K to Carnegie Mellon University to develop job skills matching and career support 💼

$72,219 to the Pennsylvania Environmental Council to boost outdoor tourism 🏞️

On September 9, 2024, Secretary of  Agriculture Tom Vilsack notified the Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro of two disaster areas.

As Sec. Vilsack noted, in accordance with 7 CFR 759.5(a), two Pennsylvania counties are designated as primary natural disaster areas due to a recent drought. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, these counties suffered from a drought intensity value during the growing season of 1) D2 Drought-Severe for 8 or more consecutive weeks or 2) D3 Drought-Extreme or D4 Drought-Exceptional.

A Secretarial disaster designation makes farm operators in primary counties and those counties contiguous to such primary counties eligible to be considered for Farm Service Agency (FSA) emergency loan assistance, provided eligibility requirements are met. Farmers in eligible counties have 8 months from the date of a Secretarial disaster declaration to apply for emergency loans. FSA considers each emergency loan application on its own merits, taking into account the extent of production losses on the farm and the security and repayment ability of the operator.

The affected counties are:

• Fayette
• Westmoreland

Contiguous Counties:

• Allegheny
• Butler
• Greene
• Somerset
• Armstrong
• Cambria
• Indiana
• Washington

Local FSA offices can provide affected farmers with further information.

Attorney General Michelle Henry has joined a coalition of 42 state Attorneys General urging Congress to require a Surgeon General’s warning on social media platforms that have proven to be addictive and harmful to children. Read more.

The Biden Administration announced a historic final rule that will ensure mental health care coverage for 175 million Americans is on par with their physical health care coverage. The final rule strengthens consumer protections by reinforcing MHPAEA’s fundamental purpose that all Americans should have the same access to mental health and substance use benefits as they do physical health benefits. And it will help lower families’ health care costs by making it easier to access mental health and substance use care and getting rid of barriers that keep people from getting the care they need, when they need it, for a price they can afford.

Join other health centers to share challenges, successes, and promising practices for increasing access to care for migratory and seasonal agricultural workers (MSAWs). The National Center for Farmworker Health (NCFH) will provide guest speakers, tools, and resources to help you better identify and reach MSAWs — as well as properly capturing them in your Uniform Data System (UDS) reporting. Visit the registration page.

To ensure that individuals who are eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance program (CHIP) retain coverage, and to assist states in their continued transition to regular renewal processing, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is providing states additional time to complete eligibility renewals, address persistent backlogs in processing redeterminations, and ensure that states achieve compliance with federal renewal timeliness requirements. This Informational Bulletin outlines the duration and conditions under which states may use an exception in the regulations to delay timely processing of renewals in “unusual circumstances” through Dec. 31, 2025. The Medicaid continuous enrollment provision, which had halted Medicaid disenrollments during the public health emergency, ended on March 31, 2023, and since that time, over 25 million Medicaid enrollees have been disenrolled and over 54 million have had their coverage renewed.

Pennsylvania’s Health Insurance Marketplace Pennie, has produced a 2023 Annual Report highlighting the work of enrollment assistance, Medicaid Redetermination statistics and Pennie’s first Health Equity Report among other enrollment facts. Thousands of Pennsylvanians don’t qualify for Medicaid, Medicare, CHIP or employer-based coverage but, due to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, can access coverage through Pennie.

In the final year 2025 Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) solicited public comments to aid in the collection of information to determine future criteria to establishing a new graduate medical residency. In the final rule, CMS noted they received a wide range of comments, and commenters did not arrive at a consensus on the best approach to the issue of the newness of residents. CMS chose not to finalize their original proposal, and is instead seeking comment on the appropriate criterion for what constitutes a new residency program. The public may submit their feedback to GME_Program_Newness@cms.hhs.gov. Comments are due by October 15.

The 2025 National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Students to Service Loan Repayment Program registration cycle is now open! Final-year students studying to become a physician (MD/DO), dentist (DDS/DMD), physician assistant (PA), nurse practitioner (NP), or certified nurse midwife (CNM) may be eligible for awards of up to $120,000. An additional $40,000 supplement is available to physician and nurse midwife final-year students who commit to providing OB/GYN services in high-need areas. Registrations are due Thursday, November 7, 7:30 pm. Find out more about the NHSC Students to Service Loan Repayment Program and how to apply.