TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2013 In a top priority of Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, the Senate on Thursday released a wide-ranging bill aimed at boosting such things as health care, education, transportation and economic development in rural areas. <\/p>\n
Sen. Corey Simon, a Tallahassee Republican who represents a heavily rural North Florida district, filed the bill (SB 250) for consideration during the 2026 legislative session, which will start in January. The Senate backed a similar measure \u2014 dubbed the \u201crural renaissance\u201d bill \u2014 during the 2025 session. <\/p>\n
But the package got broken up in the House and did not pass. The 138-page bill filed Thursday, for example, would provide $25 million for a new program aimed at helping physicians, physician assistants and advanced practice registered nurses set up practices in rural communities, according to a Senate summary of the bill. <\/p>\n
As another health-care example, the bill would increase Medicaid reimbursement payments for what are known as \u201ccritical access\u201d hospitals in rural areas. <\/p>\n
As examples on other topics, the bill would create a program to provide student-loan payment assistance for educators in rural areas; increase money to help rural counties resurface and rebuild roads; and create an Office of Rural Prosperity at the Florida Department of Commerce, according to the summary. <\/p>\n
\u201cQuality of life in rural areas can be impacted by access to job opportunities, education and health care,\u201d Simon said in a prepared statement. \u201cRural renaissance combines enhancements to the traditional infrastructure for schools and hospitals with innovations that drastically expand opportunities for education, commerce and health care in rural Florida.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. \u2013 In a top priority of Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, the Senate on Thursday released…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,99,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-55152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-politics","12":"tag-tallahassee"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}