H.R. 4541: To reauthorize the Young Women’s Breast Health Education and Awareness Requires Learning Young Act of 2009.

For more than three decades, the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program has paid for screenings for women with low incomes and little or no insurance, working through state, tribal, and territorial health agencies. H.R. 4541 bundles two bills that keep it and a related awareness effort running.

The first piece, the EARLY Act Reauthorization, keeps the federal breast health education campaign for young women going through 2031. That's the effort behind CDC's Bring Your Brave campaign.

The second piece, the SCREENS for Cancer Act, sets funding at $235.5 million a year for fiscal years 2026 through 2030 and rewrites the program's goals. The program would be told to actively increase screenings — through help navigating the health system, proven outreach strategies inside clinics, and help getting to a care setting in the first place. Prevention joins detection and control as part of the mission.

The bill also names a target. The program would work to reduce gaps in breast and cervical cancer rates, illness, and deaths, including in communities where those rates run higher than average. Screening and diagnostic services would have to follow current evidence-based recommendations, and grantees would have to ensure follow-up care happens rather than just monitor it.

Oversight changes shape. Reports to Congress would move from every year to every five years, with the first due two years after enactment. Separately, GAO must report by September 30, 2027, on how many people are eligible, how many are actually served, and what barriers explain the difference.

The $235.5 million is a ceiling, not a check — appropriators still decide each year how much the program actually gets.