Sponsors (2)
The bill meaningfully expands and standardizes access to 9-8-8 and funds post-crisis follow-up to improve continuity of care, but it requires federal funding, may leave some communities without funded services, and imposes compliance and upgrade costs and near-term implementation strain on communications providers and multi-line system operators.
People who call or text 9-8-8 (including low-income individuals, people with disabilities, and seniors) will have calls/texts routed from mobile providers — including non-service-initialized handsets — increasing real-world access to crisis help.
People at risk of suicide and other behavioral-health crises (and their families/caregivers) will receive proactive follow-up check-ins, outreach, and supported caregiver involvement, improving continuity of care and reducing repeat crises.
Crisis centers will receive technical assistance and dedicated funding, expanding local capacity to provide post-crisis continuity of care and coordinate with hospitals and local governments.
Communities — especially rural and under-resourced areas — may be left without funded follow-up services because only crisis centers in the designated network are eligible and HHS selection could exclude some centers, prolonging service gaps for at-risk people.
Rapid rulemaking and a one-year compliance deadline may strain smaller providers and vendors, increasing the risk of implementation errors and temporary disruptions to 9-8-8 service availability.
Commercial mobile providers may incur non-trivial compliance costs to upgrade networks to route all 9-8-8 traffic, and those costs could be passed to consumers via higher prices.
Based on analysis of 3 sections of legislative text.
Creates HHS grants for post-crisis follow-up services and requires mobile providers to transmit all 9‑8‑8 calls/texts; authorizes $30M for FY2027.
Introduced March 26, 2026 by Jamie Ben Raskin · Last progress March 26, 2026
Authorizes HHS to award grants to crisis centers in the national 9‑8‑8 network to provide follow-up contacts and care coordination for people who used suicide prevention or crisis services, and provides $30 million for those grants in FY2027. Requires the FCC to adopt rules so commercial mobile service providers transmit all calls and texts to 9‑8‑8, including from certain non-service-initialized handsets, with carriers required to comply within one year after the rules are issued and related telecom amendments taking effect two years after enactment.