Congress blocks Medicare rule requiring advance approval for some services
S.J.Res. 198 — A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services of the Department of Health and Human Services relating to "Medicare Program; Implementation of Prior Authorization for Select Services for the Wasteful and Inappropriate Services Reduction (WISeR) Model". · Filed by Ron Wyden (D-OR) · 21 cosponsors · Introduced Jun 24, 2026 · Reported out
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This bill would stop a new Medicare rule. The rule required doctors to get approval before giving certain services. The rule was meant to stop wasteful or wrong services. If this bill passes, the rule would not start. Medicare would need new permission from Congress to try this rule again.
Who it affects
Medicare patients would keep getting services without needing approval first. Doctors and hospitals would not have to ask permission before providing these services. Taxpayers pay for Medicare, so blocking cost controls could mean higher costs.
One thing to notice
The bill stops a tool that Medicare was going to use to control spending. It makes cost-control rules harder to put in place.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
21 cosponsors: 20 Democrats, 1 Independents.
- Jun 24, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jun 24, 2026 — Referred to Senate Committee on Finance · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance”
- Jun 24, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Senate Committee on Finance discharged, by petition, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 802(c)”
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 $410,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 166 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
Ron Wyden, who sponsored the bill, received $346,070 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- American Federation of Teachers — $410,000 in 1 report
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- approval — Permission from an insurance company before a doctor gives a service
- Medicare — A government health program for people age 65 and older
- wasteful — Spending money on things that are not needed or do not help
- 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 (2,201 characters) on Jul 2, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,206 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 2026-09-17.
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