Trump announces $12 billion in farm aid, but many farmers don't think bailout checks address bigger challenges

American farmers need more markets. (USDA photo)

The Trump administration announced a $12 billion aid package for U.S. farmers hurt by the president's “long-reaching tariffs,” report Brian Schwartz, Natalie Andrews and Patrick Thomas for The Wall Street Journal. “Much of the aid —$11 billion— will be in the form of one-time payments through the Farmer Bridge Assistance program.” 

International tariff wars, particularly those between the U.S. and China, have contributed to a financially challenging year for American farmers, with soybean farmers bearing the largest losses. “Crop prices have remained low, especially after harvesting the largest crop on record this fall,” Schwartz explains. “Through the first nine months of 2025, farm bankruptcies rose by nearly 50% compared with the same period in 2024.”

Although many farmers need the additional funds to pay down debt and invest in next year’s planting, many see them as a short-term solution. Erin Ailworth, Ilena Peng and Michael Hirtzer of Bloomberg News report, “Growers who have struggled with low crop prices, rising costs, and lost markets, [have called] Trump’s farm aid a temporary fix for deeper economic challenges.”

Missouri farmer Marty Richardson told Bloomberg, “This is kind of a Band-Aid — we need more markets more than we need aid.”

While U.S. soybean farmers suffered from a summer and fall without sales to China, presumably due to Trump’s tariffs, many know the country has been working for years to reduce its dependence on American soybeans. Bloomberg reports, “Trump’s first trade war resulted in China accelerating a diversion of its supply chain away from the U.S. to places like South America. U.S. farmers have lost crucial market share to competitors, particularly Brazil.”

Some American growers don’t think 2026 will be any better than this year. Sam Taylor, a farm inputs analyst, told Bloomberg, “This time next year, we’re going to be having much the same conversation about margins for growers, about the potential need for economic support.”

Farmers can start applying for the aid package next month. WSJ reports, "Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said that the money will start going out at the end of February." 

A Medicare pilot program will use artificial intelligence for prior authorizations. Doctors and lawmakers are alarmed.

Some prior authorization requests are already decided
by artificial intelligence. (Adobe Stock photo) 

A Medicare pilot program that allows private companies to use artificial intelligence to approve or deny medical care requested by their members has some doctors and lawmakers worried. Companies included in the pilot would get paid, "based on how much money they save Medicare by denying approvals," reports Anna Claire Vollers of Stateline.

The pilot, known as the Wasteful and Inappropriate Services Reduction (WISeR) Model, will launch after Jan. 1 in six states: Arizona, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington. WISeR is more likely to impact health care treatments for rural Americans in those states because rural populations often skew older and sicker than their suburban and urban counterparts.

At its core, the WISeR model effectively introduces a prior authorization process into traditional Medicare. Prior authorization is already unpopular with many patients and doctors because it requires members or medical providers to request an insurance company's approval for certain treatments or medications before proceeding.

While some Medicare Advantage and private insurance companies have already deployed AI into some of their prior authorization processes, its use has "attracted intense criticism, legislative action by state and federal lawmakers, federal investigations and class-action lawsuits," Vollers explains. "It’s been linked to bad health outcomes. Dozens of states have passed legislation in recent years to regulate the practice."

The new program has "alarmed many physicians and advocates in the affected states," Vollers reports. In practice, the prior authorization process can create obstacles to care by requiring physicians to spend hours fighting with an insurance company to justify the care they believe their patient needs. At times, medical providers may avoid treatments that would be best because an insurance company is likely to deny them, at least initially.

Last month, congressional representatives from several states "introduced a bill to repeal the WISeR model. It’s currently in committee," Vollers reports. The program is scheduled to run from 2026 to 2031.

A small university town in southern Illinois 'leads the nation in out-of-state abortion patients'

Adobe Stock photo

Surrounded by farmland and the vast wooded expanses of the Shawnee National Forest, Carbondale, Illinois, has become a central hub for abortion access. 

The small-sized town, which is home to Southern Illinois University Carbondale, is within “driving distance of 10 states with abortion bans,” reports Elizabeth Williamson of The New York Times. “Last year, there were nearly 11,000 abortions in this city of 21,000.”

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, 14 states have banned the procedure. Those bans made “geography an all-important factor in access to the procedure,” Williamson explains. “And placed Carbondale, a liberal enclave in a deeply conservative region, in a complicated position.”

Unlike many of its neighboring states, abortion remains legal in Illinois. Carbondale's location near the southern tip of Illinois makes travel from states such as Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and even Louisiana possible for women seeking the procedure. Williamson writes, “Illinois now leads the nation in out-of-state abortion patients.”

Although many Carbondale residents support “its status as a safe harbor. . . the sheer number of abortions has also created some unease and worry about a backlash,” Williamson explains. 

One community member told Williamson she was concerned about the negative attention the high number of abortions could bring to the otherwise “quiet community.”

Carbondale has three women’s clinics that perform abortions, but two of the three provide other women’s health services. “Alamo Women’s Clinic only does abortions, both procedural and medication, all on-site,” Williamson reports. “Fewer than five percent of Alamo patients are from Illinois.”

While details of rural health transformation requests aren't available yet, some states are sharing their information

KFF News RHTP tracking map as of Dec. 2. Click to enlarge.

The newly formed federal Rural Health Transformation Program has $50 billion to distribute to states that met its Nov. 5 application deadline; however, a complete picture of which states applied and what they asked for isn't clear because the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services have "declined to publicly release the applications," report Sarah Jane Tribble and Arielle Zionts of KFF Health News.

CMS said it isn't allowed to "release grant applications to the public during the merit review process,” KFF News reports. "They've pledged to announce the allocations by Dec. 31."

RHTP was passed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July, which drastically cut Medicaid spending and will disproportionately impact rural areas. But RHTP can't be used to "bail out" rural hospitals or clinics. KFF News explains, "The money [must] be spent on transformational ideas."

Although CMS isn't sharing application details, some states have been transparent about their applications. According to the article, a health strategy team at Princeton University tasked with tracking state application summaries found "themes including expansion of home-based and mobile services, increased use of technology, and workforce development initiatives . . ."

KFF Health News is collecting state-by-state application materials and adding them to its mapped repository, which will be updated as information arrives. 

What's on your holiday table? Americans weigh in on Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.

When it comes to holiday traditions, many Americans see special foods and meals as part of the season's delights. Agriculture researchers at the University of Illinois wanted to know if the last few years of food cost increases, inflation woes and recent tariff wars in the U.S. have changed the way Americans set their holiday tables this year. Their lightly edited discoveries are shared below.

University of Illinois graph, data from the Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey, Nov. 2025

Thanksgiving marks the first of several major feasts across the country. The main attraction? Food! More precisely, for many Americans, it means eating turkey. "Of those respondents who typically celebrate Thanksgiving with a meal, the most commonly reported protein source was turkey. A whopping 86.5% of those who celebrate Thanksgiving with a meal said they planned to serve turkey," Maria Kalaitzandonakes, Jonathan Coppess and Brenna Ellison write.

Christmas dinner fare has changed throughout American history; in fact, colonial Americans considered eating turkey a luxury, and many families opted for goose, duck or rabbit. Even with inflation and tariffs, 2025 offers more options for sumptuous Christmas meals. The researchers add, "Of those respondents who typically celebrate Christmas with a meal, turkey (47.9%), pork (47.5%), and beef (39.9%) were the most common protein sources. . . . 22.8% said they planned to serve fish or seafood, 11.1% said they planned to serve lamb."

University of Illinois graph, data from the Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy Survey, Nov. 2025

Of course, price matters: Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they expect food prices to affect their meal plans. Researchers asked consumers to share their strategies for reducing food costs. "The two most commonly reported strategies were shopping for deals on ingredients (45.5%) and shopping ahead of time to spread out ingredient costs (42.1%)."