Federal prisons must stop charging prisoners for medical care
H.R. 9525 — Federal Bureau of Prisons Medical Care Act of 2026 · Filed by Eleanor Norton (D-DC) · Introduced Jun 29, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This bill stops the Bureau of Prisons from charging prisoners for health care. Prisoners would get medical care without paying fees. One exception remains: if one prisoner hurts another, the Bureau can charge the injuring prisoner. The bill removes old rules that let prisoners skip fees if they had no money.
Who it affects
Prisoners in federal prisons are affected. They would no longer pay for most medical care.
One thing to notice
The bill stops most prison medical fees but keeps one exception for when one prisoner injures another. The bill removes rules that used to let prisoners avoid paying fees.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Jun 29, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jun 29, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 1 reports from Jun 2026 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $20,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 14 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Eleanor Norton, who sponsored the bill, received $12,000 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- Midwest Dairy Coalition — $20,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- Bureau of Prisons — The federal agency that runs prisons and cares for prisoners.
- health care — Medical care and treatment that doctors and nurses give to sick or hurt people.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (902 characters) on Jul 5, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 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 16, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-23.
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