VA Critical Health Care Personnel Pay Waiver Cap Elimination (HR9406)

Current understanding

HR9406 (introduced) would amend Title 38 to eliminate the statutory cap on the number of pay limitation waivers the VA Secretary may issue for critical health care personnel. For workers, this could enable higher compensation for hard-to-fill VA clinical roles; for the VA as employer, it removes a numerical constraint on using existing waiver authority to recruit and retain physicians and other critical clinicians. Status: introduced.

Evidence log

• 2026-08-26 — Critical Position Pay Authority: cross-connection with critical-position-pay-authority: Both address raising or eliminating pay caps for critical federal positions — OPM’s government-wide critical position pay authority parallels VA’s proposed elimination of its critical health care personnel pay waiver cap. (novelty: 2)
• 2025-02-04 — Stop GREED Act of 2025: cross-connection with stop-greed-act-2025: Opposite-direction VA compensation policies: HR9406 expands pay-limit waiver flexibility for critical clinical personnel while Stop GREED Act narrows critical skill incentive pay for central-office senior executives. (novelty: 2)
• 2026-07-09 — NRC Staff Pay Alignment Act: cross-connection with nrc-staff-pay-alignment-act: Parallel effort to relieve federal pay constraints for a specialized regulatory/technical workforce; both address recruitment and retention through pay flexibility at a single agency. (novelty: 2)
• 2025-12-11 — Honor Our Promise to Veterans Act of 2025: cross-connection with honor-our-promise-to-veterans-act-2025: Both proposals would remove pay caps for critical VA health care personnel; Honor Our Promise bundles the cap elimination with scheduling and VCCP reforms, while HR9406 is a standalone waiver-cap measure. (novelty: 2)
• 2026-06-23 — To amend title 38, United States Code, to eliminate the cap on the number of waivers to certain pay limitations that the Secretary of Veterans Affairs may issue for critical health care personnel of the Department of Veterans Affairs.: cross-connection with pro-veterans-act-2025: Both address VA compensation authorities and pay oversight — HR9406 expanding waiver flexibility for critical clinicians while the PRO Veterans Act addresses VA senior executive pay and budget oversight. (novelty: 2)

Open questions

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