Sponsors (10)
The bill directs modest, predictable federal funding to expand palliative care training, research, and public information—likely improving care quality and access for many patients—while imposing limits, eligibility rules, and modest costs that may constrain reach, create administrative burdens, and reduce some end‑of‑life options under federally funded programs.
Clinicians (physicians, nurses, social workers, PAs, CNAs, and other palliative clinicians) will receive funded, interprofessional training and career-development, increasing the number and skill of providers available to deliver palliative and hospice care.
Patients with serious or life‑threatening illnesses and their caregivers will likely get more coordinated, higher-quality palliative and hospice care (better symptom management, informed choices, fewer unnecessary hospitalizations) as workforce and information efforts expand.
Rural, frontier, tribal, pediatric, and minority/underserved communities are prioritized for programs and materials, improving the chance that historically underserved areas gain better palliative access.
Taxpayers fund the new programs (roughly $20M/year for the named training programs plus potential added NIH/research or administrative costs through FY2030), which diverts federal dollars from other priorities.
Patients in federally funded programs and clinicians in those programs could have reduced access to certain end‑of‑life services and training on some end‑of‑life options, because recipients may not use funds to furnish or train on services intended to cause death.
Caps on fellowship program numbers (≤24 programs) and limits on award amounts (e.g., $150,000 cap) may constrain how many trainees benefit and slow the pace of workforce expansion.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes federal grants and contracts to expand palliative care and hospice education, training, and research and directs AHRQ/NIH activities to support information and research.
Creates a coordinated federal program to expand palliative care and hospice education, training, and research. It authorizes new competitive grants and contracts to train clinicians and interdisciplinary teams, funds fellowships and academic career awards, directs AHRQ to disseminate patient-facing palliative care information, and requires an NIH-wide strategy to expand palliative care research. The bill sets funding levels for two grant streams (workforce training and interprofessional education) for FY2026–FY2030, limits fellowship awards and program counts, requires coordination across settings (hospitals, hospice, home, long‑term care), and prohibits use of funds to support items or services that would be ineligible under the federal ban on funding actions intended to cause death.
Official title: To amend the Public Health Service Act to increase the number of permanent faculty in palliative care at accredited allopathic and osteopathic medical schools, nursing schools and other programs, including social work, physician assistant, and chaplaincy education programs, to promote education and research in palliative care and hospice, and to support the development of faculty careers in academic palliative and hospice care.
Introduced July 16, 2025 by Buddy Carter · Last progress July 16, 2025