Alabama Senate passes bill eliminating cost-sharing for prostate cancer screening
Jan 19, 2026 | 8:01 am ET
Description
Sens. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur (left) and Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro (right) look at a phone on the floor of the Alabama Senate on Jan. 14, 2026 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. The Senate passed Livingston's bill that would require health insurance companies to cover prostate cancer screenings for all high-risk patients. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
The Alabama Senate Thursday approved a bill that would require health insurance companies to cover prostate cancer screenings for all high-risk patients.
SB 19, sponsored by Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, would allow all men over 50 and high risk men over 40 to be screened for prostate cancer without any cost-sharing obligations.
The 2025 version of the bill was approved by the Senate and got a favorable House committee vote, but was never considered by the full House.
The American Cancer Society estimates that 5,400 men in Alabama will be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year. It also estimates that about 10% of those will die from the disease. That is 400 less than the ACS’s 2025 estimation of diagnoses.
Jane Adams, government relations director for ACS Cancer Action Network in Alabama, said in an interview Wednesday that early screenings help improve outcomes and eliminating cost-sharing allows more patients to get screened.
“We’ve been doing a lot of activity with survivors, making sure that lawmakers are hearing about how important the screening is and how important eliminating barriers is to getting the screening,” Adams said. “I think a lot of those efforts have led to it being a priority, and we’re always appreciative of that.”
The bill was the second passed by the Senate.
According to the American Cancer Society, Black men are at higher risk for the disease. The mortality rate for prostate cancer was 18.7 per 100,000 men in 2022, half of what it was in 1993. The 5-year survival rate for the disease is 100% for the majority of men diagnosed with localized- or regional-stage prostate cancer, but drops to 37% for those diagnosed with distant-stage disease, according to the American Cancer Society. The 10-year survival rate for all stages combined is 98%.
The bill only applies the cost-sharing elimination to patients who have a father, brother or son with a prostate diagnosis or cause of death; Black men, and men over fifty.
The bill moves to the House.
Montgomery
