Senators move to renew the grants behind rural Alaska's telehealth links

Federal grants that pay for videoconferencing links between rural Alaska clinics and distant specialist teams would keep flowing under a bill four U.S. senators introduced Monday.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia introduced the Expanding Capacity for Health Outcomes Reauthorization Act. The current authorization, set by the ECHO 2019 Act, created a grant program of $10 million a year for fiscal years 2022 through 2026.

The program pays for a model that links specialist teams with primary care providers by interactive videoconferencing. Grants cover equipment for the secure exchange of electronic health information, support for participating providers, instructional programming and training, and data collection to measure the model's impact. Murkowski named the University of Alaska and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium as Alaska organizations using it.

"In rural Alaska, you have to improvise," Murkowski said. She said the model has "a proven track record of improving health outcomes by helping rural providers access specialized expertise," strengthening care, improving provider retention, and reducing the need for patients to travel for specialty care.

Rural health advocates have argued that grant renewals alone don't settle the question. In a January 2026 advocacy document, the National Rural Health Association paired support for telehealth grant reauthorization with calls for Medicare and Medicaid payment stability and broadband investment — the pieces a videoconferencing link can't supply on its own.