POTUS hosts roundtable on healthcare as Americans seek solutions for high prices
Amid a healthcare cost crisis in America, the Trump administration held an important roundtable discussion rural healthcare and the newly introduced ‘Great Healthcare Plan’
by Summer Lane | January 16, 2026
President Donald Trump held a roundtable discussion at the White House on Friday, focusing on rural healthcare in the United States.
The discussion included conversations on critical funding and the newly announced “Great Healthcare Plan” pitch for broader America.
In late December, the Trump administration announced a landmark $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program – a key part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law last July.
According to the White House, it represents the largest federal investment in rural healthcare in American history and will disperse funding to all 50 states over the next five fiscal years.
This may be little comfort to those Americans whose monthly insurance premiums have skyrocketed by up to 114 percent since January 1, thanks to the expiration of the Obamacare-era enhanced tax credits.
As for the rural healthcare program, the president said the fund was made possible due to the Trump administration’s work to cut down on waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid.
“Only seven percent of the annual Medicaid spending on rural hospitals has gone to rural hospitals,” the president said, slamming Obamacare. “…As a result, rural healthcare facilities have suffered from low occupancy rates, workforce shortages, and failing problems that put Band-Aids – literally, put Band-Aids – over the problems in those communities, and we’re not going to have that.”
He also alluded to his healthcare framework pitch, the “Great Healthcare Plan,” which he has called upon Congress to codify. The core tenets of his plan include permanently lowering the cost of prescription drug prices and, instead of subsidizing healthcare insurance companies, allowing federal money to flow to the “people.”
“They spent hundreds of billions of dollars, and we’re going to have that money…given to the people, we’re going to circumvent the insurance companies,” he said on Friday.
Photo: Adobe Stock
