Military health-care users gain complaint tracking system, Congress gets access data.
H.R. 6796 — Military CARE Act · Filed by Steven Horsford (D-NV) · 23 cosponsors · Introduced Dec 17, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill requires the Department of Defense to build a digital complaint system within 18 months that allows military health-care beneficiaries (TRICARE members) to file complaints about access problems at military hospitals and clinics, track their complaints in real time, and receive quarterly aggregated reports to leadership. The DoD must also submit annual reports to Congress detailing complaint patterns by facility, type of care, and remedial actions taken.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is establishing a digital complaint and reporting system to improve transparency and accountability in military medical facilities. It is a straightforward governance and oversight tool with no deregulatory, subsidy, or private-benefit component.
What the text implies
- Quarterly aggregation and annual congressional reporting may create pressure on facility commanders to reduce complaint volume, potentially incentivizing complaint suppression or administrative barriers rather than genuine access improvements.
- The bill does not specify complaint resolution timelines, remediation standards, or consequences for facilities with high complaint rates, leaving enforcement and accountability mechanisms undefined.
- Complaint data aggregation by facility may expose performance disparities across military medical centers, potentially triggering resource reallocation or staffing changes that could affect beneficiary access in underperforming facilities.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Military health-care beneficiaries and their families gain a transparent, accessible complaint mechanism and real-time status tracking—a direct improvement in accountability and responsiveness at military medical facilities. Congress gains structured data on systemic access problems, enabling evidence-based oversight.
Named in the bill
Department of Defense, Secretary of Defense, Defense Health Agency, TRICARE program, Military medical treatment facilities, Patient advocates (DoD), House Committee on Armed Services, Senate Committee on Armed Services
Where it stands
23 cosponsors: 14 Democrats, 9 Republicans.
- Dec 17, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Dec 17, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Armed Services · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Armed Services”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $854,387 in lobbying spend. A filing names 50 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Steven Horsford, the sponsor, reported $1,801,734 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Military Officers Association of America — $854,387 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (2,462 characters) on Jun 3, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Military health-care users gain complaint tracking system, Congress gets access data.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr6796 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.