YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyFree HIV and STI tests for people on Medicaid, TRICARE, VA care, or Indian Health Service care
Your Money
State Medicaid programs would have to cover screening tests for HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis, trichomoniasis, and chlamydia, with no copays. It covers tests that private plans must already give for free, starting about a year after the bill becomes law.
CHIP, the health program for children in lower-income families, would have to cover the same STI screening tests. The bill also aims to bar CHIP copays for them, but its wording points to the wrong paragraph of the law.
Service members, retirees, and family members on TRICARE could get these STI screening tests with no copay. This covers TRICARE Prime, TRICARE Select, and coverage for people also on Medicare, starting January 1 of the year after passage.
Veterans enrolled in VA health care could get these five STI screening tests at a VA medical center. The VA could not charge a copay or any other cost for them.
The Indian Health Service would pay for these STI screening tests with no cost to the patient. This holds even when the test was not approved through its outside-care referral system, including at urban Indian clinics.
Medicare Advantage plans would have to treat these five STI screening tests like a protected service. They could not charge you more for the tests than regular Medicare charges.
More about this bill
You could get tested for five sexually transmitted infections (STIs) without paying anything. That applies if you get care through Medicaid, the military's TRICARE, the VA, or the Indian Health Service. The tests are for HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis, trichomoniasis, and chlamydia. Only tests that private health plans must already cover for free would count. That free coverage rule applies to tests a federal panel of experts gives a grade of A or B. CHIP plans for children would also have to cover these tests. Medicare Advantage plans could not charge more for these tests than regular Medicare does. The Medicaid and CHIP changes would start about one year after the bill becomes law. States that need to pass their own law first would get more time. The TRICARE, VA, and Indian Health Service changes would start on January 1 of the year after it passes.
Congressional Summary
Equity in STI Testing Act This bill provides for coverage, without cost-sharing, of testing for certain sexually transmitted infections under Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), TRICARE, Department of Veterans Affairs health benefits, and the Indian Health Service.
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- House
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in House
- Action Date
- 2026-07-23
- Date Added
- 2026-10-06
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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