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Authorizes the HHS Secretary to award grants to health care providers to pay for security services and to improve physical and cyber security for facilities, staff, and patients. Grants may cover necessary security services and upgrades such as video surveillance systems, data privacy improvements, and structural changes to ensure safe access. The bill creates an authorization to fund these grants but does not specify funding levels, eligibility details beyond "health care providers," or an effective date. Implementation would require HHS to establish application and award processes and would depend on later appropriations.
The bill would improve physical and cybersecurity protections at health facilities—boosting safety and data protection and lowering some provider costs—but does so at taxpayer expense and could raise privacy and equity concerns unless strict safeguards and equitable allocation rules are included.
Hospitals, clinics, healthcare workers, and patients can receive federal grants to upgrade physical security (surveillance, structural work), improving on-site safety for staff and patients and reducing the risk of violence or disruptive incidents.
Hospitals and patients gain federally funded cybersecurity and data-privacy improvements, lowering the risk of health-record breaches and strengthening protection of sensitive patient information.
Smaller and resource-constrained providers can have security-related costs covered by grants, reducing their financial burden and helping maintain access to care in communities they serve.
Patients and staff at healthcare facilities may face increased privacy and civil‑liberty risks if expanded surveillance and structural security measures are implemented without strict safeguards and oversight.
Smaller, rural, and under-resourced providers may be left behind if grant awards disproportionately benefit larger or better-resourced systems that can more easily apply and comply, worsening geographic and resource inequities in care.
All U.S. taxpayers bear the cost of creating and funding the new grant program, increasing federal spending with funding levels unspecified in the bill.
Introduced January 22, 2025 by Veronica Escobar · Last progress January 22, 2025