Qualified to Serve Act

This bill, called the Qualified to Serve Act, aims to make medical rules for joining the military clear, fair, and consistent across all branches. It tells the services to use one set of medical standards for both officers and enlisted roles, and to share these rules in plain language with people who want to join, including how reviews and waivers work. The overall goal is consistency, transparency, and fairness in deciding who is medically fit to serve.

It also says a person can’t be turned away only because of a medical diagnosis from early childhood if four things are true: the diagnosis happened before age 13, they needed no treatment in the last five years, a licensed medical professional now says they’re fit and no longer meet the diagnosis, and the service decides this history is unlikely to harm the force’s health or readiness. There must be a review process for medical disqualifications, and the service can approve someone anyway if it’s in the national security interest. The Defense Department must report each year how many people were disqualified for medical history, how many approvals were granted, and any updates to the standards or review process.

Key points

• Who is affected: People applying to join any branch of the Armed Forces.
• What changes: Uniform medical standards across branches and jobs; rules must be easy to find and understand; limits on automatic disqualifications for certain childhood diagnoses; a clear review and waiver process; yearly reporting to increase transparency.