In the early hours of January 20, 2026, Congressional appropriators released the text of a four-bill funding measure that includes the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). If enacted, the package would keep the agencies funded past the current January 30 fiscal deadline and reject major funding cuts proposed in the President’s budget for Fiscal Year 2026.
LeadingAge supports the bipartisan bills, which includes positive funding levels for HUD Section 202, the agency’s flagship senior housing program, and for key healthcare priorities for older adults. House leaders plan to set up a vote to pass the spending bills later this week.
Congress Proposes Funding Increase for HUD Programs; Spending Bill Rejects Harmful Housing Access Barriers.
In the bipartisan bill text, congressional appropriators signaled support for key HUD programs serving older adults, including for Section 202 Supportive Housing for the Elderly, despite significant pressure from the administration to cut housing subsidy programs and impose time limits and work requirements on certain rental subsidies. The negotiated text does not include those subsidy limitations and secures adequate funding for HUD’s Section 8 and Section 202 programs. It also increases funding levels for Service Coordinator grants, authorizes two-year grant terms, and provides funding to preserve older Section 202 properties through the Rental Assistance Demonstration. The bill also includes certain protections for homelessness interventions funded through HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) grants, which the agency had recently proposed to interrupt. Overall, LeadingAge supports the funding bill and will provide additional analysis of the broader HUD appropriations bill in the coming days.
Health Extenders Contain 2-Year Extension for Telehealth; Hospice Provisions Contain Program Integrity Guardrails.
The bipartisan, bicameral appropriations bill was contains health care policies in need of extension (“health extenders”) and bipartisan, bicameral health policies around topics like pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) that were negotiated in December of 2024 but never passed. Medicare telehealth flexibilities were last extended when the government reopened in November 2025 and currently are set to expire on January 30th. This bill would extend most telehealth policies for two years (until December of 2027) and are written as straight extensions — for example, the ability to bill telehealth from any site in any geography. The hospice face-to-face recertification via telehealth is extended until December 31, 2027 with the following guardrails and policies included:
- Requiring the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to create, and providers to use, claims code modifiers when a visit is done via telehealth and;
- Disallowing hospices who are under enhanced oversight from utilizing telehealth for the face-to-face or not allowing the encounter to occur via telehealth if the physician or nurse practitioner performing it is not enrolled Medicare.
Given the recent scrutiny on hospice, LeadingAge is evaluating the potential impacts of these guardrails and talking to members of Congress and the Administration about the language. We will have an article in the coming days more fully exploring considerations for hospice members around these additions to the virtual face to face policy. The bill also contains an extension of additional hospice survey funding authorized by the HOSPICE Act. LeadingAge will also provide additional analysis of the broader HHS appropriations bill and the other provisions of the health extenders package in the coming days.
LeadingAge supports the bipartisan bills, including key healthcare and housing priorities for older adults. House leaders plan to set up a vote to pass the spending bills later this week.
