Well, there continues to be a lot of debate about the fate of Kentucky's rural hospitals.

Republican U.S.

Senate candidate and Kentucky's sixth district Congressman Andy Barr is at odds with Governor Andy Beshear over how money from the Rural Health Transformation Program can be used.

On Friday, Barr was joined in Lexington by Doctor Mehmet Oz, the country's Medicare and Medicaid services administrator who runs the program.

Our Mackenzie Spink was there.

In a public letter to Governor Andy Beshear, Congressman Andy Barr called on him to use recently awarded funds from the Rural Health Transformation Program to support the 35 rural hospitals.

The governor was concerned would close as a result of changes to Medicaid funding.

Bashir responded that federal guidelines prevent those dollars from going directly to fund struggling rural hospitals.

The nation's top Medicaid official doctor moment Oz says they can.

The Medicaid website lists ten approved ways states can use the Rural Health Transformation funds, including workforce containment and recruitment efforts for rural hospitals.

So to use this body correctly, you have to re-envision the way we create a healthy experience for folks in rural America.

Now, we don't want this money going to building new buildings.

That doesn't seem to deal with the problems.

We don't want it to go paying old debts back.

We want this money going to support hospitals and clinics and providers who are out there desperately trying to make a difference.

We need more doctors and nurses, hospitals and clinics are critical to that process.

We want to fund institutions, hospitals in particular, that have moderate infrastructure and information technology, get them to talk to each other.

The Rural Health Transformation Program will distribute $50 billion over the next five years to boost rural health across America.

Kentucky has received $213 million this first year, according to the governor's office.

The state will use this money to address chronic disease, women's health, behavioral health, oral health, and improving emergency response in rural areas.

The goal was to get the money to governors because people trust governors to use the money correctly more than they trust anybody else.

But yet, for whatever reason, the governor cannot use the money as was promised in the grant.

It will be taken back by the federal government.

Governor Beshear, his most recent letter to Congressman Barr says the state is predicted to lose $21 billion in Medicaid funding because of cuts signed into law by President Trump, threatening the jobs of Kentucky health care workers.

Administrator Oz and Representative Barr argue that the changes to Medicaid funding saved the program and aren't cuts at all.

I inherited a program when the president appointed me to this position that was looking at an additional $5.4 trillion of spending over the next decade, $5.4 trillion would have bankrupted Medicaid.

We did save Medicaid because there were billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse plaguing the system.

And what we said was, we're going to check eligibility.

We're going to make sure that individuals who receive Medicaid dollars are eligible beneficiaries, not illegals, that they meet the statutory criteria.

And this idea that the governor here in Kentucky and others around the country, the critics of the president, the critics of our law are saying that somehow this is a cut is wrong.

The reality is that Medicaid spending over the next ten years after enactment of our bill, will grow by $250 billion.

So I don't know in what universe these politicians can claim that that is a cut.

The new Medicaid requirements for work reporting and re determining eligibility will begin at the end of this year.

For Kentucky edition I'm McKenzie Spink.

Now, Congressman Andy Barr's Democratic challenger in the U.S.

Senate race is also weighing in on this topic on social media.

Charles Booker's team posted this quote, Andy, eligible for funding isn't the same as this.

Money can save our rural hospitals.

Kentucky got $212 million.

While your bill cuts $911 billion in federal Medicaid funding.

Stop pretending one pot of money replaces the health care funding.

Your bill puts at risk.

End quote.