119th Congress Health
S. 3492: Essential Caregivers Act of 2025
Introduced
- Introduced (completed)
- Passed Senate (not reached)
- Passed House (not reached)
- To the President (not reached)
- Became law (not reached)
Summary
Essential Caregivers Act of 2025
This bill prohibits certain health care facilities from limiting the access of essential caregivers to residents of those facilities, including during designated emergency periods.
Specifically, the bill generally prohibits Medicare skilled nursing facilities, Medicaid nursing facilities, Medicaid intermediate care facilities, and associated inpatient rehabilitation facilities from restricting the access of essential caregivers to residents of the facilities, including during emergency periods in which visitation rights are otherwise restricted. During emergency periods, facilities may restrict access for an initial period of up to seven days and for one additional maximum seven-day period (if the additional period is approved by the state health department). Facilities may restrict access for a total of 7 days (or 14 days with the approval of the state health department) during an emergency period.
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Essential caregivers must agree to comply with any safety protocols set by the facility, which may be no more stringent for caregivers compared to those for staff. Caregivers who fail to comply with these requirements may be denied access, subject to an appeals process.
Written by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.
Roll calls
No roll call votes have been held on this bill.
Amendments
No amendments were offered to this bill.
Cosponsors
- John Cornyn R-TXOriginal
- Angela Alsobrooks D-MD
- Steve Daines R-MT
- Kirsten Gillibrand D-NY
- Thom Tillis R-NC
- Kevin Cramer R-ND
- John Reed D-RI
- John Boozman R-AR
- Timothy Kaine D-VA
- Katie Britt R-AL
- Mark Kelly D-AZ
- Christopher Murphy D-CT
- Elissa Slotkin D-MI
- Eric Schmitt R-MO
- Tim Sheehy R-MT
- Susan Collins R-ME
- Sheldon Whitehouse D-RI
- Ashley Moody R-FL
- Elizabeth Warren D-MA
- Ben Luján D-NM
- Tommy Tuberville R-AL
- Amy Klobuchar D-MN
- Lisa Murkowski R-AK
- John Kennedy R-LA
- Alejandro Padilla D-CA
- Ruben Gallego D-AZ
- Cynthia Lummis R-WY
Who scored on this bill
- 1Richard Blumenthal SponsorDrew cross-party cosponsors, introduced, reached a cosponsor milestone3 events+12
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Introductions and cosponsorships count toward weekly caps and show no points.
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History
- Introduced in the Senate by Richard Blumenthal.
Show the full action history (2 actions)
- Introduced in Senate
- Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.