A bipartisan bill introduced in the House on Tuesday would waive the $100,000 annual fee for H-1B visas for foreign health care professionals seeking to work in the United States, among them doctors and nurses.
The fees, imposed by the Trump administration last September, threatened to drive up costs for hospitals that rely on foreign health providers for staffing, and typically bring on a new class of medical residents, among them many foreign medical school graduates, on July 1.
Many internationally trained doctors provide care in rural and underserved regions of the country and in strained medical disciplines, such as primary care, which many U.S.-trained doctors shun.
Many other industries, including technology and finance, also rely on the H-1B visas to fill jobs. When the fee was announced last year, the Trump administration said that companies that hired new skilled international workers on an H-1B visa would have to pay $100,000 each year for any employee working on the visa, for up to six years.
Officials with the American Medical Association said they welcomed the new bipartisan legislation, which was sponsored by Representatives Mike Lawler, Republican of New York; Sanford D. Bishop Jr., Democrat of Georgia; Maria Elvira Salazar, Republican of Florida; and Yvette Clarke, Democrat of New York.
“I live in Flint, Michigan, a very medically underserved place that really depends on international medical graduates,” said Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, president of the A.M.A. “If this doesn’t get fixed, it leaves places like my hometown and other rural communities without enough physicians to take care of that population.”
“In many such communities, international medical graduates play a vital role in providing care and ensuring patients can see a doctor when they need one,” he added. The organization urged Congress to act quickly.
The United States is already facing a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036, according to the A.M.A.
The H-1B visa fees also threaten to deepen a national shortage of nurses. As of 2022, half a million immigrant nurses worked in the United States, accounting for one in six of the nation’s more than three million registered nurses.
Roni Caryn Rabin is a Times health reporter focused on maternal and child health, racial and economic disparities in health care, and the influence of money on medicine.
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