Sponsors (33)
The bill preserves health-care staffing and lowers costs by exempting H‑1B clinicians from a new surcharge, trading off potential federal revenue, deterrent leverage, and creating some administrative verification burdens.
Hospitals and clinics — especially safety-net and rural providers — can recruit and hire H‑1B clinicians without paying the new $100,000 surcharge, preserving staffing pipelines and patient access to care.
Health-care facilities that rely on foreign professionals face lower hiring costs, which helps maintain services and financial viability in underserved areas.
Prospective H‑1B health workers and immigrant clinicians are protected from an additional high surcharge, reducing financial barriers to employment.
Taxpayers and the federal budget may forgo revenue and lose an enforcement/deterrence tool because the administration cannot impose the new surcharge on qualifying health-care H‑1B petitions.
U.S.-based workers could face weaker deterrence against some employer practices intended to shift jobs abroad, potentially increasing competition for certain positions (though the exemption applies to health care).
Federal agencies and employers may face implementation burdens and disputes over verifying who qualifies as 'health care workforce' under ACA section 5101, creating administrative complexity and costs.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Exempts H‑1B health care workers from a Presidential proclamation requiring a $100,000 payment and bars charging them fees above the INA-specified limit.
Exempts H-1B health care workers from a Presidential proclamation that conditions H-1B admission on petitioners paying $100,000, and prevents imposing any fee on those exempted workers that would exceed the fee limit set in existing immigration law. It also includes a non-substantive provision that sets an official short title for the Act.
Introduced March 17, 2026 by Michael Lawler · Last progress March 17, 2026