CMMSA 2.0

HR4206 — CONNECT for Health Act of 2025

Expands Medicare telehealth access by removing geographic limits and ending an in-person requirement for telemental health. It would also change payment rules for clinics and require more oversight, training, and data reporting. - Medicare beneficiaries would be able to receive telehealth across geographies beginning October 1, 2025. Telemental health would no longer require a six-month in-person visit and tribal and Native Hawaiian facilities would be exempt from originating-site rules starting January 1, 2026. - Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics would be paid for telehealth under outpatient or prospective payment methods and telehealth costs as distant-site care would count as allowable PPS costs. The HHS Secretary could waive limits on which practitioner types may furnish telehealth starting October 1, 2025 with annual public comment and a three-year reassessment requirement. - The bill would strengthen program integrity funding for telehealth, require CMS to post quarterly telehealth data, and add telehealth to quality-measure reviews within 180 days. It also mandates a beneficiary engagement study and a Government Accountability Office report on hospice recertification within three years.

HR2548 — Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025

Automatic, recurring sanctions on the Russian government and its affiliates. This bill would create a multi-layered sanctions regime that forces mandatory measures within 15 days of a covered determination and requires reassessment every 90 days. - U.S. financial institutions and investors: Banks, brokers, and U.S. investment funds would be barred from processing transfers to the Russian Federation, buying Russian sovereign debt, or making monetary investments in entities owned or controlled by the Russian government. Many prohibitions would take effect within 15 days of a covered determination and recur every 90 days. - Energy, trade, and commodities: The bill would ban U.S. exports of energy to Russia, bar investments in the Russian energy sector, and prohibit imports of uranium sourced from Russia or Rosatom. It would also raise duties on imports from Russia to not less than 500 percent and allow similar duties on third countries trading in Russian-origin energy commodities. - Individuals, exchanges, and payment networks: High‑ranking Russian officials, oligarchs, and sector actors would face property blocks and visa ineligibility under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The SEC would be directed to bar listing or trading of Russian‑affiliated issuers and global financial messaging providers could be sanctioned for continuing service to designated banks.

HR1262 — Mikaela Naylon Give Kids a Chance Act

Speeds and strengthens pediatric cancer drug development. It expands which cancer products companies must study in children, reshapes organ transplant network governance and fees, and adds new FDA international and transparency steps. - Children with cancer and researchers: Requires pediatric studies that produce clinically meaningful data on dosing, safety, and early effectiveness and widens the kinds of drug combinations studied. It also sets aside $25 million for pediatric drug studies in each of fiscal years 2026, 2027, and 2028. - Transplant patients and transplant network members: Changes Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network governance and financing by allowing quarterly registration fees, requiring those fees fund OPTN operations, improving electronic health record integration, and calling for a GAO review within two years. - FDA partners and drug makers: Creates an Abraham Accords Office to boost regulatory coordination and technical assistance abroad, and forces more transparency during generic (ANDA) reviews about whether generics are qualitatively and quantitatively the same as listed drugs. It also raises the Medicare Improvement Fund amount from $1.4 billion to $2.6 billion. Increases federal outlays by roughly $1.3 billion, driven by a $1.2 billion boost to the Medicare Improvement Fund and $75 million for pediatric studies, adding to federal spending.

HR1004 — Love Lives On Act of 2025

Protects surviving military spouses' benefits after remarriage. It clarifies and expands eligibility for VA survivor payments, the Survivor Benefit Plan annuity, and TRICARE dependent status. - Surviving spouses: Remarriage will not bar certain VA survivor payments under 38 U.S.C. sections 1311 and 1562, and the bill renumbers related subparagraphs for clarity. - Survivor Benefit Plan annuities: The Secretary may not stop SBP annuity payments solely because a surviving spouse remarries. For spouses who remarried before age 55 and before enactment, payments resume either one year after enactment or on the first month after enactment for those who transferred payments to children under the rule in effect on Dec. 31, 2019. - TRICARE dependents: A widow or widower who remarried but whose later marriage ends by death, divorce, or annulment will be treated as a dependent for TRICARE.

HR842 — Nancy Gardner Sewell Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act

Would expand Medicare to cover multi-cancer early detection screening tests. It defines eligible tests as certain FDA-cleared or approved genomic blood tests or comparable biological-sample tests and directs the Secretary to use the national coverage determinations process to decide when they are covered.

HR1329 — Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum Act

Authorize the Smithsonian American Women's History Museum within the Reserve of the National Mall. It would remove an earlier site-designation limit, set a transfer and notification process for federal land, require exhibits to reflect diverse and authentic women's experiences with defined guidance, and mandate regular reports to Congress. - Smithsonian and the Board of Regents — Would be able to place the museum inside the National Mall Reserve and the bill removes a prior limiting phrase that constrained site designation. - Other federal agencies — Must receive notice before a site under their administrative jurisdiction is designated. The agency head must promptly notify specified House and Senate committees and then transfer administrative jurisdiction as soon as practicable. - Museum visitors and Congress — The Council must ensure exhibits and programs accurately represent varied cultures, histories, events, and values of women and seek guidance from a broad array of knowledgeable and respected sources with definitions for those terms. The Secretary must report to Congress 120 days after enactment and every two years on actions taken and planning.