Sponsors (22)
The bill stabilizes home health payment levels for beneficiaries and providers in 2026–2027 but does so at the cost of higher Medicare spending and the risk of masking needed payment corrections and reducing long-term efficiency.
Medicare beneficiaries receiving home health care will avoid payment-rate-driven cuts in 2026–2027, and home health agencies/providers will have predictable payment rates for that period.
CMS can implement the payment offset quickly via program instruction, reducing administrative delay in preserving payment levels.
Taxpayers and the Medicare trust funds will face higher program spending in 2026–2027 because the bill prevents proposed home health payment reductions.
Blocking the proposed downward adjustments may preserve inefficiencies or overpayments that the 2025 rule aimed to correct, weakening long-term program sustainability and fairness.
Excluding these additional payments from expenditure calculations could complicate future rate-setting and mask underlying cost trends, making budgeting and policy adjustments harder.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Blocks two proposed 2026 HH PPS cuts and requires positive adjustments so 2026–2027 home health rates are set based on the 2025 rate with those offsets applied.
Prevents two proposed reductions to the Medicare Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS) for calendar year 2026 and requires adjustments to keep 2026 and 2027 national 30-day home health payment rates at levels that offset those cuts. It directs the Secretary of HHS to apply a positive adjustment in 2026 and 2027 to fully counteract a -4.059% permanent adjustment and a -5.0% temporary adjustment shown in the July 2, 2025 proposed rule, to base the 2026–2027 standardized 30‑day rate on the 2025 rate (with that adjustment applied), and to exclude those offset amounts from later recalculations and offsetting adjustments.
Official title: To amend title XVIII of the Social Security Act to ensure stability in payments to home health agencies under the Medicare program.
Introduced September 4, 2025 by Kevin Hern · Last progress September 4, 2025