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Gov. Patrick Morrisey was in Parkersburg, Moundsville and Fairmont Thursday to emphasize the connection between a healthier population and a healthier economy.
This comes following an announcement from the governor Wednesday that West Virginia had submitted an application to the Rural Health Transformation Program. Morrisey said the state would receive at least $100 million a year in federal funds for health and wellness programs.
If the state can help to improve people’s health, Morrisey said those people can then stay in the workforce longer and contribute more to the state’s economic strength.
“Good health care outcomes means more people in the workforce,” Morrisey said. “More people in the workforce leads to stronger economy, higher workforce participation, and ultimately that feeds back in for the ability to attract even more people to our state.”
The funds are meant to lessen the blow of cuts to Medicare and Medicaid in the One Big, Beautiful Bill passed by Congress earlier this year. West Virginia may lose as much as $900 million a year from those cuts, putting rural hospitals at risk.
Morrisey has repeatedly said the state will make up those cuts with savings on medical costs from improved health outcomes. That is based on four pillars of food clean-up, health and purpose, fitness, and rewarding healthy choices.
Thursday he also discussed more practical matters including improving accessibility to health care via improved transportation, telehealth and affordability.
“The first plank addresses distance problems that we have in West Virginia to be able to see the health care provider of your choice,” Morrisey said. “We want to make it so that it’s easier for you to either physically go and connect with the provider or have the provider come to you through telehealth opportunities.”
This also included an expansion of where access points to health care occur, including at clinics, libraries and via existing emergency medical services.
Morrisey emphasized the importance of recruiting, retaining and retraining health care workforce via the newly announced Mountaineer Care Force, a statewide workforce recruitment effort.
“We have shortages of a number of health care professionals, primary care physicians, specialists, nurses, pharmacists, lab techs. We need to change that,” he said. “So what we want to do is we want to continue the existing incentives that the health care community has been doing and build upon them.”