New Bill Mandates GAO Study on Esophageal Cancer Screening and Costs for Federal Employees

The Gerald E. Connolly Esophageal Cancer Awareness Act of 2025 is a clear, targeted effort to tackle a rapidly growing public health crisis: esophageal cancer. This bill doesn’t create new programs or mandates; instead, it focuses on awareness and data collection to pave the way for future action.

The Urgency: What the Bill Acknowledges

Before getting to the action items, the bill lays out some alarming facts in its findings section (SEC. 2). Esophageal cancer is the fastest-growing cancer diagnosis for men in the U.S., with overall cases jumping over 700% recently. The reason it’s so deadly—someone dies from it every 36 minutes—is that it’s usually caught too late. The good news is that catching the precursor condition, Barrett’s esophagus, or the cancer in its early stages, drastically improves the five-year survival rate. This section is the bill’s foundation, emphasizing that awareness and early screening are the key to saving lives.

Who’s Checking the Receipts? (The GAO Report)

The core of this legislation is a mandate for the Comptroller General (the head of the Government Accountability Office, or GAO) to produce a detailed report for Congress within one year (SEC. 3). The GAO is essentially the government’s auditor, so they’re tasked with getting concrete data on two major areas within the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program.

First, the report must detail the total amount of money spent on health care for FEHB participants who have been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. This gives policymakers a clear picture of the financial burden this late-stage disease places on the federal insurance system. Second, and perhaps more crucially, the GAO must look at screening frequency. They need to figure out how often high-risk FEHB members—those with risk factors like chronic acid reflux, smoking history, or obesity—are actually getting screened according to accepted medical guidelines.

Real-World Impact: What This Means for Everyday People

If you’re a federal employee or covered under the FEHB Program, this report shines a spotlight directly on your health plan’s effectiveness for this specific cancer. If the GAO finds that high-risk employees aren't getting screened often enough, that data will pressure FEHB administrators and insurance carriers to improve outreach and coverage compliance. For instance, if a high-risk federal worker hasn't seen their primary care doctor about persistent heartburn, this report might lead to better communication from their plan about the importance of screening, which could catch a treatable condition before it becomes terminal.

More broadly, the bill’s findings section serves as an immediate public awareness tool. For anyone with chronic acid reflux (GERD), the bill highlights that if you have three or more risk factors (male, over 50, smoking history, obesity, family history), you should be talking to your doctor about screening. This bill is a classic example of using targeted data collection to identify where the system is failing, with the ultimate goal of improving early detection and saving lives—starting with the population covered by the federal government.