A little less than an hour into the talk, the president interjected to let everyone know they were running behind schedule. We're gonna have to go very fast, Trump said. We're gonna have to go very we are way behind schedule and I have a couple of meetings that are very important. Nothing more important than this, but let's go! Come on, Bob!
The Alaska Department of Corrections does not provide comprehensive access to this life saving medication. "I'm gonna give you a little pinch," Spencer said, sliding the needle into a fold of skin on the patient's belly for the subcutaneous injection. Alaska's not an outlier. Despite the fact that those recently released from incarceration are some of the most vulnerable to dying from drug overdose, addiction experts say that many jails and prisons around the country don't provide medication treatment.
Driving the news: The average award for 2026, the first of five years, is $200 million. Alaska, a rural state with unique challenges for health care access, got the second most funding after Texas, receiving $272 million. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted for the bill after being the focus of hours of negotiations with GOP leaders. The Wall Street Journal reported over the summer that officials had reassured Alaska's GOP senators that the state would do well in allotments from the fund.
The program will distribute $50 billion to states between fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year 2030, with $10 billion released each year. That represents roughly a 50% increase in federal spending on rural healthcare, which currently totals about $19 billion per year through Medicaid. To qualify for funding, states must submit a detailed plan outlining how they intend to use the money to improve rural healthcare.
The expansion of these programs was spurred by the pandemic, during which clinicians devised creative solutions when in-person care wasn't possible, she explained. For example, she recalled when acupuncture sessions shifted online during the pandemic. A VA physician quickly pivoted to holding virtual appointments teaching veterans "acu-touch" techniques they could use at home to relieve pain. This shows that innovation involves more than just technology, Clancy noted. It's about changing care delivery methods to meet patients where they are.
My 77-year-old mother wanted sympathy, the kind Mark believed was for the weak: offers of a cup of a tea, a hug. Long ago, decades even, she had learned not to seek it from him. With him, she was a trooper. At 62 she had retired and followed him up to a high desert mountain, 6,500ft (1,981 metres) in north-east California.
