Sponsors (7)
Introduced February 26, 2025 by Josh S. Gottheimer · Last progress February 26, 2025
The bill expands access to early cancer detection for firefighters through a $700 million grant program and data collection effort, improving prevention and outcomes but raising federal spending, privacy, coverage-limit, and implementation concerns.
Firefighters and EMS personnel will receive funded multi-cancer early-detection and preventive tests through a $700 million grant program, expanding screening access and likely reducing late diagnoses and improving survival.
Firefighters, hospitals, and public-health agencies will benefit from a voluntary FEMA–CDC program that collects anonymized test data to identify occupational cancer trends and inform prevention and policy improvements.
The program caps per-test grant payments at $1,750, which helps control federal program costs and enables funding for multiple types of testing per participant.
Taxpayers and federal budget priorities face an additional $700 million in spending, which could increase deficits or crowd out other priorities.
Firefighters may be unable to access higher-cost or emerging diagnostics because the $1,750 per-test cap might not cover premium tests.
Firefighters may have privacy concerns because sharing even anonymized test results risks re-identification or misuse of data.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes $700M for grants to fund cancer-prevention tests for firefighting personnel, caps per-test payments at $1,750, and creates a voluntary FEMA–CDC program to collect de-identified results.
Creates a new grant program under the Firefighter Assistance program to pay for cancer prevention testing for firefighting personnel, including multi-cancer early detection tests, and authorizes up to $700 million to fund those grants. Tests paid from grant funds would be capped at $1,750 per test, and the bill establishes a voluntary, anonymized FEMA–CDC data program to collect test results to identify cancer trends and causes among firefighters.