The emergency room is 45 minutes away. The specialist is an hour and a half. When you live in rural Michigan, healthcare means long drives, fewer options, and hoping the small hospital nearby stays open another year.

Federal lawmakers understood this. The Rural Health Transformation program directs billions toward communities that actually need it. Rural communities. Places where the nearest trauma center isn’t down the block.

So how did MDHHS respond? By labeling Oakland and Wayne counties “partially rural” so they can compete for the same pot of money.

Oakland County. Wayne County. “Rural.” It’s absurd.

Michigan already got a raw deal. Despite ranking top ten nationally for rural population, we received just $173 million in funding, placing us in the bottom ten. Iowa got $209 million, Ohio got $202 million. Lansing managed to secure less and then figured out how to misspend it.

It gets worse. The Department of Health and Human Services plans to skim nearly $19 million for “administrative costs,” including $2 million for salaries, benefits, and travel for 12 new positions. That’s nearly $170,000 per employee. For bureaucrats. While rural hospitals fight to keep their doors open.

Our Michigan House Republican Oversight Committee is investigating. We’re bringing MDHHS officials in to answer for this decision. Rural families deserve to know why Lansing thinks Detroit’s suburbs qualify as “rural” while their local hospitals struggle to survive.

Washington sent this money to help people who drive 45 minutes to see a doctor. Lansing’s job was simple: get it to them. Instead, they’re padding payroll and playing games with definitions.

We’re watching. And we won’t let them get away with it.