HR 3594 — Gold Star Spouses Health Care Enhancement Act

Summary

Removes the three-year time limit on TRICARE Prime medical benefits for surviving spouses of members of the Armed Forces who die in service.
Removes the three-year time limit on dental benefits for surviving spouses of members of the Armed Forces who die in service.
Makes these changes retroactively applicable to surviving spouses whose family member died before the bill's enactment.

AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.

Sponsor (1)

Rep. Kaptur, Marcy (D-OH) [#9]

2 cosponsors

Rep. Bacon, Don (R-NE) [#2]
Rep. Fitzpatrick, Brian K. (R-PA) [#1]

Money behind the sponsor

Top reported contributors to Marcy Kaptur’s campaign committee (2024 cycle) — who funds the bill’s sponsor, not a claim about this bill. Data from FEC.

NO EMPLOYER $15,363
UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO $12,120
TURTLE PLASTICS $11,900
THE DASCHLE GROUP $11,600
CONLON PUBLIC STRATEGIES $10,000

Organizations whose employees gave the most — itemized individual contributions grouped by the donor’s reported employer (FEC Schedule A). Full finance for Marcy Kaptur → · Outside spending →

Actions (2)

May 23, 2025 Referred to the House Committee on Armed Services. · house
May 23, 2025 Introduced in House

Similar bills (6)

Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.

Text versions (1)

Introduced in House · May 23, 2025

Only one text version is on file, so there’s no earlier version to compare against yet.

Full text

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 23, 2025

Ms. Kaptur (for herself and Mr. Bacon) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services

A BILL

To amend title 10, United States Code, to expand the health care benefits available for Gold Star surviving spouses.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Gold Star Spouses Health Care Enhancement Act”.

SEC. 2. EXPANSION OF HEALTH CARE BENEFITS FOR GOLD STAR SURVIVING SPOUSES.

(a) Medical Benefits.—Section 1079(g) of title 10, United States Code, is amended—

(1) in paragraph (2), by inserting “except as provided by paragraph (5),” after “benefits under paragraph (1),”; and

(2) by striking paragraph (5) and inserting the following:

“(5)(A) A dependent described in subparagraph (B) shall not be subject to the three-year time limit specified in paragraph (2) with respect to eligibility for benefits under TRICARE Prime.

“(B) A dependent described in this subparagraph is a dependent for purposes of section 1072 of this title by reason of being a surviving spouse of a member of the Armed Forces whose death is covered by section 1126.”.

(b) Dental Benefits.—Section 1076a(k) of such title is amended—

(1) in paragraph (3), by striking “Such term” and inserting “Except as provided by paragraph (4), such term”; and

(2) by adding after paragraph (3) the following:

“(4)(A) A dependent described in subparagraph (B) shall not be subject to the three-year time limit specified in paragraph (3).

“(B) A dependent described in this subparagraph is a dependent for purposes of section 1072 of this title by reason of being a surviving spouse of a member of the Armed Forces whose death is covered by section 1126.”.

(c) Application.—The amendments made by this section shall apply with respect to a surviving spouse of a member of the Armed Forces whose death is covered by section 1126 of title 10, United States Code, regardless of whether such death occurred before the date of the enactment of this Act. <all>

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