Sponsors (28)
Official title: To amend the Public Health Service Act to improve children's vision and eye health through grants to States, territories, and Tribal organizations, and the provision of technical assistance to support those efforts.
Introduced March 31, 2025 by Marc Veasey · Last progress March 31, 2025
The bill makes a modest federal investment to expand childhood vision screening, education, and data-driven coordination—improving detection and reducing disparities—while adding new federal spending, administrative requirements for state/local entities, and dependence on future appropriations for sustained impact.
Children (especially in rural, low-income, and tribal communities) gain earlier detection and treatment of vision problems through funded statewide screening/referral programs, improving childhood eye health and school readiness.
Families (including non-English speakers) receive culturally and linguistically appropriate education and public awareness materials, helping parents identify vision issues and access care for their children.
The program targets health disparities by funding strategies to expand access to pediatric vision care for underserved populations, potentially reducing inequities in childhood eye health outcomes.
Taxpayers fund a new $5 million per year authorization (FY2026–2030), increasing federal spending without specified offsets.
State and local agencies, schools, and tribal programs must commit staff time and resources to apply for grants, coordinate partnerships, and meet reporting and evaluation requirements, creating administrative burden.
Grant conditions (e.g., requirement to carry out a subset of specified activities) may shift local program priorities and constrain flexibility in how jurisdictions deliver services.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes an HRSA grant program to build statewide early detection, data, access, outreach, and referral systems for children’s vision and eye health.
Creates a new HRSA grant and cooperative agreement program to fund statewide early detection and intervention systems for children’s vision and eye health. The program lets states, territories, tribes, tribal organizations, Urban Indian organizations, state or community health/children agencies, and state education agencies apply for awards to build screening, referral, data, outreach, and care-coordination activities that link vision services with other child health and education programs. Awards must support at least three of six listed vision activities (screening/intervention, state data systems, access/ disparities strategies, public awareness, coordinated public-health vision systems, and referrals to wrap-around services). Recipients must coordinate with federal/state programs (e.g., Title V, Medicaid EPSDT, CHIP, IDEA Parts B/C, IHS) and consumer groups, report publicly, and may receive technical assistance from HHS/HRSA.