Healthy Rural Communities

By: Gov. Larry Rhoden

January 30, 2026

The 2026 Legislative Session is off to a strong start. I signed my first bill of the session: HB 1044, which appropriates funding for the Rural Health Transformation Plan in South Dakota. This will be a game changer for healthcare quality and availability in our rural communities. In my State of the State Address, I asked the Legislature to make this the first bill that reaches my desk – and they pulled through!

Access to healthcare is an important building block of every community. In many communities, healthcare is also one of the largest employers. I am proud that South Dakota has some of the best healthcare in the nation. But we also have plenty of wide-open spaces. I grew up in Union Center, so I understand exactly how challenging access to healthcare can be in rural areas.

This is a big year for rural healthcare in South Dakota. We turned the challenge of rural healthcare access into an opportunity. Our state was recently awarded $189 million in federal funding for our Rural Health Transformation Plan. This is the first year of a five-year investment to strengthen healthcare access across our state.

Our plan didn’t commit to policy changes or programs that don’t make sense for South Dakota. We focused on what our communities actually need. Our plan modernizes healthcare by bringing more services to rural and remote areas. We also focused on bolstering technology, which can often have expensive upfront costs.

But ultimately, healthcare is about people, and we need the best people to provide the best healthcare, so this plan strengthens our healthcare workforce. We will attract and retain health professionals, expand community health workers, integrate behavioral health into primary care, improve chronic disease management, and support rural facilities.

We will also establish Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics statewide and create regional EMS hubs – all of these actions will expand the types of healthcare available in our most rural areas.

This plan was built with extensive input from rural communities, the Great Plains Tribal Leaders Health Board, and healthcare providers and other stakeholders across the state. They told us what they need, and this plan delivers it.

Legislative leadership worked well with my Departments of Health and Social Services, as well as our healthcare providers, to prioritize getting this passed quickly. South Dakota is competing with every other state, and in future years, the federal government will reward states that move quickly. So, it’s great news that we got this done by the end of the third week of session!

This is the first of hopefully many great accomplishments for the people of South Dakota. This legislative session, we are focused on keeping South Dakota strong, safe, and free. The session is off to a great start, and I’m optimistic for how the rest of it will play out. Our state is in great shape – we just need to do a few commonsense things to make South Dakota even stronger. 

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