Sponsors (7)
Establishes a national hotline that improves support and could reduce costly emergency responses for people with developmental disabilities and their caregivers, at the cost of new federal spending and potential uneven service without strong implementation and funding.
Caregivers of people with developmental disabilities (parents and families) and people with disabilities gain a national hotline that provides dedicated guidance, information, and crisis support, improving timely access to resources and reducing caregiver burden.
People with disabilities and their caregivers may need fewer emergency interventions and incur lower healthcare or crisis-response costs because the hotline can connect callers to appropriate resources and referrals.
Taxpayers will fund the establishment and ongoing operation of a national hotline, increasing federal spending or requiring funds to be reallocated from other programs.
Caregivers and people with disabilities may face uneven service quality, limited hours, or gaps in coverage during rollout or without clear implementation details and sufficient funding.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Adds a statutory provision to create a national hotline for caregivers of individuals with developmental disabilities under the Developmental Disabilities Assistance Act.
Adds a new national hotline for caregivers of individuals with developmental disabilities to the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000, establishing the program in federal law under the Act's authorities. The bill inserts a statutory provision and a table-of-contents entry to create the “National Hotline for Caregivers of Individuals with Developmental Disabilities” (text of the hotline program itself is not included in the published section summaries).
Official title: To amend the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000 to establish a hotline for caregivers of individuals with developmental disabilities, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 30, 2026 by Robert Menendez · Last progress April 30, 2026