Defend Rural Health Act of 2026

This bill changes Medicare rules that let hospitals in urban areas ask to be treated as rural hospitals for payment purposes. Starting with applications filed on or after October 1, 2026, only urban hospitals meeting certain listed criteria could be reclassified as rural, and a state law rural designation would count only if it existed as of January 1, 2026. Beginning October 1, 2029, no hospital would be treated as rural under this process unless it shows Medicare officials it meets those criteria, even if it was approved earlier. The bill also bars a hospital treated as rural from also getting a geographic reclassification through the Medicare Geographic Classification Review Board for the same fiscal year, starting October 1, 2026.

Full text and official record on Congress.gov

Sponsors

• David J. Taylor Republican sponsor
• 14 cosponsors