By Matthew Young
For the Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON — Diabetes, obesity and “seven pillars” of health care to combat them were the topic of a panel discussion Friday, which focused heavily on the $199.5 million in grants West Virginia is set to receive through the federal Rural Healthcare Transformation Fund.
Facilitated as part of the recent passage of the federal One Big, Beautiful Bill, states will receive $100 million in rural health care funding per year for five years, with the annual option to apply for supplemental funding to accommodate unique needs. West Virginia’s 2026 supplemental application secured the state an additional $99.5 million, which state Health Secretary Arvin Singh said will help reduce the prevalence of diabetes and obesity throughout West Virginia moving forward.
Reducing diabetes and obesity rates statewide
Speaking at the Culture Center at the Capitol Complex as part of a four-person panel during the West Virginia Press Association’s Legislative Lookahead conference, Singh told attendees, “A lot of the efforts we put into that application … focus on [diabetes and obesity]. In that five-year program, we wrote and held ourselves accountable to reducing diabetes prevalence to get out of that bottom quartile.”
According to the American Diabetes Association, 41% of West Virginians are considered medically obese, the highest obesity rate in the country. To combat this, Singh said West Virginia will adopt an “obesity-first mindset when it comes to public health,” which will include education to support healthier living.
While Singh noted the existence of penalties within the funding if specific reduction-markers are not met, he provided details of neither the markers, nor the associated financial penalties. Singh also declined to specify what “holding ourselves accountable” means.
Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced on Dec. 29 that the supplemental $99.5 million is intended to address:
■ Distance between patients and medical providers
■ Lack of access to rural health care providers
■ The need for resources to support rural health care providers
■ Necessary assistance for residents to resume working after health restoration
■ Education designed to prevent adverse health outcomes through nutrition, exercise and healthy lifestyle-changes
In support of these healthy lifestyle- changes, panelists suggested one initiative will feature a statewide recommendation of higher- quality foods.
In addition to Singh, those panelists were:
■ David Goldberg, West Virginia Hospital Association chairman, who also serves as president and CEO of Mon Health Morgantown and vice-president of Vandalia Health
■ Drema Hill, vice president of community engagement and chief operations officer of West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine
■ Sen. Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha, who is a pulmonary physician
However, Takubo conceded that higher-quality foods are typically more expensive than their lower- quality counterparts.
How will the RHTF grant be spent?
While West Virginia’s supplemental- application approval guarantees that the state will receive no less than $595.5 million over the next five years, numerous reporting agencies — including the Center for American Progress and the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy — have projected that the passage of the One, Big Beautiful Bill will cut as much as $1 billion of the state’s Medicaid funding, resulting in upwards of 65,000 residents potentially losing their health care coverage.
When asked for further details as to how the state will maximize the $199.5 million RHTF grant to offset the impact that such deep Medicaid cuts and significant health-coverage losses would have on an already impoverished and unhealthy state, Singh said, “I would go to the seven pillars we put in the application.”
The “seven pillars” Singh referred to, which were first announced by Morrisey in November, consist of:
1. Connected Care Grid: Build the infrastructure to bring virtual and in-person care access to people on-demand.
2. Rural Health Link: Transport West Virginians to care when it’s needed.
3. Mountain State Care Force: Recruit, train and retain the health care workforce of the future.
4. Smart Care Catalyst: Support tech-enabled innovation and regulatory relief.
5. Health to Prosperity Pipeline: Help West Virginians rebuild health, rejoin the workforce and thrive in their communities.
6. Personal Health Accelerator: Empower healthy living through food as medicine, movement and local partnerships.
7. HealthTech Appalachia: Incubate leapfrog technologies that innovate health care delivery and unlock economic growth.
“[The seven pillars] are our blueprint for moving forward, especially when it comes to access to care, workforce and bringing in innovative technologies,” Singh said. “I feel that is really going to change the trajectory of the state.”
“We have to look at health care differently,” Singh added. “How we’re doing it now is not working.”
What’s next
Morrisey is scheduled to deliver his second State of the State address to both houses of the Legislature at 7 p.m. Wednesday, the first day of the 2026 legislative session. Morrisey has previously indicated that he will provide details of his new fiscal year budget proposal during his address. It remains uncertain if specifics regarding the usage of RHTF dollars will be included within those details.
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