DENVER, July 26 (UPI) -- Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson Friday unveiled a plan to improve health care and social services for the 65 million Americans who live in rural areas.
Thompson also announced $46 million in grants to improve rural health care as part of the plan based on recommendations from a Rural Task Force he created last summer.
"We need to improve services to rural Americans," he said in a speech at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. "These bold next steps will help us coordinate our efforts with the states, local and tribal governments and provide life saving and life enhancing services to millions of Americans."
The task force recommended ways to improve access to services, strengthen rural families, support rural economic development, improve coordination among government units, and conduct better research on the needs in rural America.
Many rural officials believe federal regulations designed for urban and suburban areas hamper their efforts to deliver quality services, according to the report.
"For too long our rural health care and social service providers have been burdened with rules and regulations designed for urban and suburban communities," Thompson said. "Today we begin to change that. Today we begin to look at rural communities as something unique and independent -- not as 'small cities'."
The grants include $23 million to improve small rural hospitals, $15 million to improve quality of care in more than 1,000 of the hospitals, and $8 million to support the state rural health offices that offer technical assistance and coordination.
Thompson created the task force as part of his Initiative on Rural America announced last July. He asked the department-wide task force to finds ways to breakdown barriers and improve services to rural America.
About 225 of the programs in Thompson's department serve rural areas.
"Health care can represent up to 20 percent of a community's employment and income," he said. "In some lower-income rural communities, federal support for these services may account for as much as 50 percent of the community's revenue. The department's efforts to bring more and better health and social services to rural areas will also give a boost to local economies."
