Division B — HEALTH

4 Titles Generated 10/4/2026 via Grok

Division Overview

Division B — Health is part of the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2025 (H.R. 1968). It is not a full Department of Health and Human Services budget. It extends expiring public health, Medicare, Medicaid, and human-services programs, mostly through September 30, 2025 (the end of fiscal year 2025).

Overview

This division keeps a set of health programs and Medicare payment rules from expiring in spring 2025. Earlier law had carried many of them only through March 31, 2025. Division B generally pushes those deadlines to September 30 or October 1, 2025, and sets funding for the second half of the fiscal year for several community and diabetes programs. It does not set the regular operating budgets for agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the Food and Drug Administration.

Total Spending

There is no single total for this division. It is a package of extensions, not a department-wide appropriation.

The largest amounts written into the text are mandatory-style program funds for April 1, 2025, through September 30, 2025:

  • About $2.56 billion combined for community health centers, the National Health Service Corps, teaching health centers, and the two special diabetes programs.

Other stated amounts (Medicare outreach, quality measurement, family health information centers, and the Medicare Improvement Fund) are separate and are listed below. Many Medicare and Medicaid items change payment rules or expiration dates and do not include a dollar figure in this text.

Key Funding Areas

  • Community Health Centers: $2,135,835,616 — about $2.14 billion for April 1–September 30, 2025, for clinics that serve people in underserved areas regardless of ability to pay.
  • National Health Service Corps: $172,972,603 — about $173 million for the same six months, for scholarships and loan repayment for clinicians who work in shortage areas.
  • Teaching health centers (physician training): $87,739,726 — about $87.7 million for the same period, for residency programs based in community clinics rather than only in large hospitals.
  • Special Diabetes Program (Type 1): $79,832,215 — about $79.8 million for April 1–September 30, 2025, available until spent, for Type 1 diabetes research and related work.
  • Special Diabetes Program for Indians: $79,832,215 — about $79.8 million for the same period, available until spent, for diabetes prevention and treatment for American Indians and Alaska Natives.
  • Medicare outreach and benefits counseling: amounts available through September 30, 2025, are raised to $30 million for State Health Insurance Assistance Programs, $30 million for Area Agencies on Aging, $10 million for Aging and Disability Resource Centers, and $30 million to coordinate efforts to tell older Americans about benefits. Those replace lower amounts that ran only through March 31, 2025 ($22.5 million, $22.5 million, $8.5 million, and $22.5 million).
  • Medicare quality-measure work: funding is raised from $11.03 million to $14.03 million, and the end date moves from March 31, 2025, to September 30, 2025.
  • Family-to-Family Health Information Centers: $6 million for all of fiscal year 2025, replacing $3 million that covered only the part of the year before April 1, 2025.
  • Medicare Improvement Fund: the amount in the fund is raised from $1.251 billion to $1.804 billion (an increase of $553 million). The text does not spell out new projects for that increase.

Sexual risk avoidance education and personal responsibility education are extended for the full fiscal year at the prior annual funding level. This division does not print those dollar amounts.

Notable Provisions

  • Medicare telehealth rules stay in place through September 30, 2025. That includes care from home and outside rural areas, a wider set of clinicians, telehealth at federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics, audio-only visits, hospice recertification visits, and a delay of in-person visit requirements for mental health care delivered by telehealth.
  • Hospital care at home waiver authority is extended from March 31, 2025, to September 30, 2025.
  • Extra Medicare payments for rural and small hospitals continue through the end of fiscal year 2025, including the low-volume hospital adjustment and the Medicare-dependent hospital program (extended to October 1, 2025).
  • Ambulance add-on payments and the floor on the physician work geographic index (which props up payments in lower-cost areas) are extended to October 1, 2025.
  • Certain oral antiviral drugs remain covered under Medicare Part D through September 30, 2025.
  • Medicaid cuts to disproportionate-share hospital payments are delayed. The bill drops a cut that had been scheduled for April 1–September 30, 2025, and moves the reduction schedule so it runs through 2028 instead of through 2027. The text does not state the dollar size of those delayed cuts.
  • National health security authorities are extended from March 31, 2025, to September 30, 2025, including dates tied to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the National Disaster Medical System, and related preparedness provisions. No new dollar amounts are set in that section.
  • Teen pregnancy-prevention education programs — sexual risk avoidance education and the Personal Responsibility Education Program — are funded for the full fiscal year 2025 rather than only a partial, pro-rated period.
  • Medicare sequestration timing is adjusted. One statutory period changes from 8 months to 10 months, and another from 4 months to 2 months. The text does not state the payment cut percentage or the budget effect.
  • The Secretary of Health and Human Services may carry out several of the Medicare changes by program instruction rather than full new regulations.

Who Benefits

  • Patients of community health centers, including people who are uninsured or underinsured and people in rural and medically underserved areas.
  • Doctors, nurses, and other clinicians who get National Health Service Corps support to practice in shortage areas, and residents training in community-based teaching health centers.
  • People with Type 1 diabetes, and American Indian and Alaska Native communities served by the Special Diabetes Program for Indians.
  • Medicare beneficiaries who use telehealth, hospital-at-home care, ambulance services, or certain oral antivirals, and rural beneficiaries whose doctors are protected by the geographic payment floor.
  • Small, rural, and Medicare-dependent hospitals, and hospitals that receive Medicaid disproportionate-share payments for serving low-income patients.
  • Older adults and people with disabilities who get help understanding Medicare and other benefits through state and local aging and disability programs.
  • Families of children with special health care needs, through Family-to-Family Health Information Centers.
  • Youth served by the sexual risk avoidance and personal responsibility education programs. The bill text does not identify grantees or enrollment numbers.

Plain English Summary

This slice of the bill is a “don’t let these health programs expire” package for the rest of fiscal year 2025. It puts about $2.14 billion more into community health centers for April through September, plus smaller amounts for clinician loan repayment, doctor training in community clinics, and diabetes programs, including a program for American Indians and Alaska Natives. For people on Medicare, it keeps pandemic-era telehealth rules, hospital-at-home care, extra payments for rural hospitals and ambulances, and a few other payment protections going until the end of September 2025. It also puts off scheduled Medicaid payment cuts to hospitals that treat a lot of low-income patients. It is not the full health department budget — it is the list of programs Congress chose not to let lapse halfway through the year.

Titles

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