Tinnitus has been the most-compensated condition in the VA system since 2003. About 3.2 million veterans draw a monthly check for it, more than half of everyone who carries a disability rating. H.R. 9237 and its Senate companion, S. 4744, proposed ending the standalone rating that pays for it.

They also proposed changing the current sleep apnea rating tied to medically required CPAP use.

On June 10, 2026, the chairmen of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees, Mike Bost and Jerry Moran, introduced the Take Care of America's Veterans Act. It is a single 600-page package that folds in more than 60 separate bills (House number H.R. 9237, Senate number S. 4744). The headline is the Major Richard Star Act, a fix combat-injured retirees have waited years for. There is real good in here for severely disabled veterans, for survivors, and for Gold Star families. But the package is "fully offset," in the committee's own words, and the offset is the part the official one-page summary gives a single sentence. The way Congress pays for the new benefits is by rewriting how the VA rates the two most commonly claimed conditions in the system. I read the actual bill text. Here is what it says, who it helps, and who pays.

Status update, August 29, 2026: H.R. 9237's latest recorded House action remains the July 16 postponement of further proceedings, with no final passage vote and no enactment. The Senate companion, S. 4744, remains on the Senate legislative calendar after its June 11 placement. Current VA rating rules for tinnitus and sleep apnea remain in effect.

If you have tinnitus or sleep apnea, or plan to claim either one, the analysis below explains what the proposed language would change if either version becomes law. It does not describe the rating rules in effect today.

TL;DR

  • The package (H.R. 9237 / S. 4744) would bundle more than 60 veterans bills behind the Major Richard Star Act, which would end the rule forcing roughly 54,000 combat-injured retirees to give up military retirement pay dollar for dollar against their VA disability.
  • The proposal would pay for the package by reducing future tinnitus and sleep apnea ratings. Scorers and critics put the cut at up to $57 billion over ten years, reaching as many as 1.5 million veterans over time.
  • Standalone tinnitus would no longer be compensable. A 10% rating would survive only when tinnitus rides along with hearing loss that is service-connected but otherwise noncompensable.
  • Sleep apnea would move to an effectiveness ladder: 0% if treatment controls it, 10% for partial relief, 50% only if treatment fails, 100% only with end-organ damage. The automatic 50% for using a CPAP would be removed.
  • If enacted, the bill text says the new criteria could not reduce or discontinue compensation already in effect. The proposed rules would apply only to claims filed after the date of enactment.
  • None of this is new policy. The VA proposed the same tinnitus and sleep apnea cuts by regulation back in 2022 and never finalized them. This bill would turn a stalled, reversible proposal into permanent law.
  • The VFW, DAV, and IAVA opposed the offset. The House pulled H.R. 9237 from further consideration on July 16, 2026, before a final passage vote. It is not law. S. 4744 remains on the Senate calendar.

The wins are real, and some are overdue

Start with what the bill gets right, because it is a lot, and because the fight over the pay-for makes more sense once you see what the pay-for is buying.

The Major Richard Star Act. If you were medically retired from the military for a combat-related injury before you hit 20 years of service, the government currently makes you choose. For most of these retirees, every dollar of VA disability compensation reduces their military retirement pay by a dollar. That offset hits roughly 54,000 combat-injured veterans. The Star Act ends it for combat-related cases, so those veterans receive their full retirement and their full VA disability at the same time. The Congressional Budget Office scored the standalone Star Act at about $9 billion over ten years.

Here is the sequence that explains the whole package. On June 9, 2026, Senator Rand Paul blocked an attempt to pass the Star Act on its own because it was not paid for. The next day, the chairmen introduced this package, which is paid for. The offset exists because the Star Act could not move without one.

Briley-Edmundson benefit increases. The Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act (H.R. 6047) already passed the House on May 21, 2026, and it rides inside this package. Two pieces matter. It adds $10,000 a year, about $833 a month, in Special Monthly Compensation for the most severely disabled veterans at the R1, R2, and T levels, the ones who need constant aid and attendance at home. That reaches roughly 7,000 veterans. It also raises the base rate for survivors' Dependency and Indemnity Compensation by 1.5% phased over two years.

I will be straight about the size of that survivor increase, because the framing around it is bigger than the dollars. On a base around $1,699 a month, 1.5% is roughly $25 a month, a little over $300 a year. What makes it notable is that it is the first increase to the DIC base that is not a routine cost-of-living bump since 1993. Survivors have gone 33 years without one. The number is small. The precedent is not. It reaches about 549,000 survivors.

Love Lives On Act. Under current law, a surviving spouse who remarries before age 55 loses DIC entirely. The Love Lives On Act (H.R. 1004) lets them keep it at any age. Fewer than 5% of survivors under 55 remarry today, which tells you the penalty is doing exactly what penalties do. The bill treats remarriage as a personal decision instead of a trigger to cut an earned benefit.

The rest of it. The package also carries the Veterans' ACCESS Act (community care without wait times), a provision in H.R. 2137 that bars the VA from denying a claim solely because you missed a medical exam, GI Bill housing allowance increases for online and apprenticeship students, six more months of caregiver coverage after a veteran leaves the program, TBI care and research, and TAP expansion for transitioning service members. More than 60 bills, most of them uncontroversial. That is the point of bundling. You attach the hard pay-for to a stack of things almost nobody wants to vote against.

How they proposed to pay for it: the part the one-pager won't show you

The committee's summary says the package is "fully offset by codifying a bipartisan change to VA's ratings schedule." That one sentence is Section 108 of the bill. Here is what Section 108 would do if enacted.

Sleep apnea: the proposal would remove the CPAP 50%

Today, if you use a CPAP machine for service-connected sleep apnea, you get 50%. That single rule has made sleep apnea one of the most valuable claims in the system. The Washington Post ran the numbers last year and found the VA pays more for sleep apnea than it does for some lost limbs. Section 108 would replace the CPAP rule with an effectiveness ladder:

  • 0% when the condition is asymptomatic, with or without treatment. Read that as: if your CPAP works, zero.
  • 10% when treatment gives incomplete relief.
  • 50% only when treatment is ineffective, or you cannot use it because of another condition, and there is no end-organ damage.
  • 100% only when there is end-organ damage.

Put real dollars on it. At 2025 rates, for a veteran with no dependents, 50% pays about $1,102 a month and 10% pays about $175. That is roughly $11,000 a year, tax-free, that a future claimant would lose by being treated successfully. The better your machine works, the less you are paid. That is not a side effect of the design. That is the design.

Tinnitus: the proposal would end the standalone rating

Tinnitus is the number one compensated condition in the VA system. The current rule is about as simple as the VA gets: service-connected tinnitus is a flat 10%. Section 108 says tinnitus "may not be assigned a separate compensable disability rating," with a single exception. A 10% rating survives only when tinnitus is "diagnosed as associated with service-connected hearing loss that is otherwise noncompensable."

Translate that. If you have ringing in your ears from gunfire or flight lines and nothing else, the proposed schedule would pay zero. If you also have measurable hearing loss that does not rate on its own, tinnitus would pull it up to 10%. In effect, tinnitus would stop being its own disability and become a modifier on hearing loss. For the millions of veterans whose first and sometimes only rating is tinnitus, that 10% is the door into the system. This proposal would close the door behind them.

Remember how VA math works, too. Ratings combine, they do not add. A tinnitus 10% is often the piece that takes a veteran from 80% to 90%, or nudges a borderline case across a rounding line. Losing it is not always a clean minus $175. Depending on your other ratings, it can be the difference at a threshold. If you have never seen how that combining math actually plays out, the combined rating calculator is worth five minutes.

The price tag: $57 billion, 1.5 million veterans

Independent scoring and the bill's critics put the ten-year savings at up to $57 billion, with as many as 1.5 million veterans affected over time, which is the DAV's estimate. Hold that against the $9 billion the Star Act costs. The proposed offset was several times larger than the single bill it was most associated with, because it was designed to pay for the entire 60-bill package, not just the Star Act.

The line that actually matters: your current rating is safe

This is where the reporting got muddy, so I went to the bill text instead of the summaries. Some coverage suggested currently-rated veterans could be cut at their next re-examination. The introduced text says the opposite. Section 108(c) has two parts, and you need both.

The revisions to the schedule for rating disabilities ... shall apply with respect to claims filed after the date of the enactment of this Act.

... may not serve as the basis for reducing, discontinuing, or otherwise adversely affecting compensation that was in effect on the day before the date of the enactment of this Act.

In plain terms: if you already hold a tinnitus 10% or a sleep apnea 50%, this bill cannot take it away. Senator Moran's office confirmed the same thing. So the alarming version going around, that 1.5 million veterans are about to get cut, is not what the introduced text does.

Now read the first clause as carefully as the second. The new rules apply to "claims filed after" enactment. That is broad. It covers:

  • Anyone filing for tinnitus or sleep apnea for the first time.
  • Anyone adding either one as a secondary claim later. Sleep apnea is one of the most common secondary claims there is, tied to PTSD, to sinus and respiratory conditions, to weight gain from limited mobility.
  • Anyone filing for an increase. Your existing award is protected, but the claim you file after enactment gets judged under the new schedule.

So "grandfathered" is true for the rating you hold today. It is not a blanket shield for everything you might file tomorrow. The bill draws a hard line at the date of enactment. Claims before that date are read under today's schedule. Claims after it are read under the new one. I am not going to tell you what to do with that line. I am telling you it exists, because the one-pager does not.

These proposed cuts did not start with this bill

Here is the context both the one-pager and the press releases skip. The VA proposed both of these changes four years ago.

On February 15, 2022, the VA published proposed rules to revise the rating schedule for the ear, nose, and throat body system, which covers tinnitus, and the respiratory body system, which covers sleep apnea. The comment window closed that April. The proposals read almost exactly like Section 108: drop the standalone tinnitus rating and fold it into the auditory code, and rate sleep apnea on how well treatment works rather than on whether you use a CPAP.

Those rules were never finalized. Four years later they are still proposals, not law, parked in the docket. Section 108 would have Congress do by statute what the VA proposed by regulation and never finished.

That difference is the part worth sitting with, because it cuts in a direction neither side is advertising.

A proposed regulation is reversible. It can be withdrawn, rewritten, or left to die, which is roughly what happened to these for four years. Any administration can pull it. A statute does not work that way. Once the tinnitus and sleep apnea criteria are written into law, the VA has to apply them, and it takes another act of Congress to undo it. The bill says the Secretary "shall revise" the schedule. That is a command, not the discretion the VA has been sitting on since 2022.

So the real shift is not that someone dreamed up a cut to the two most common claims. It is that a stalled, reversible proposal would become permanent and mandatory if enacted.

What the DAV gets right, and what it overshoots

The DAV came out hard against the package on June 10, 2026, under a blunt headline: a proposal to cut benefits for up to 1.5 million veterans. National Commander Coleman Nee said the changes would apply to "all new claims as well as any reassessment or reevaluations of existing claims."

I went looking for that language in the bill. It is not there. I searched the full text of both the House and Senate versions for "reassessment" and "reevaluation" and got zero hits. The applicability clause I quoted earlier says the new criteria reach only claims filed after enactment, and that they cannot be the basis for reducing compensation already in effect.

That protection does not depend on this bill. It is built into the statute the bill amends. Title 38, Section 1155, the same section Section 108 revises, already says this:

In no event shall such a readjustment in the rating schedule cause a veteran's disability rating in effect on the effective date of the readjustment to be reduced unless an improvement in the veteran's disability is shown to have occurred.

That is current law. It is why the VA, when it floated these exact changes in 2022, said outright that veterans already rated for these conditions "will not have their disability rating impacted." A schedule change, whether it arrives by regulation or by statute, cannot strip an existing rating unless your condition actually improves. So the version traveling around, that a million and a half current recipients are about to be reassessed and cut, is not what the text or the underlying law does.

Now give the DAV its due, because they are right about the part that counts. The cut is real, it is large, and it lands on the next generation of disabled veterans. The 1.5 million is their estimate of veterans affected over time, meaning future claimants who will draw less than they would today. Tinnitus stops being its own ratable disability. Sleep apnea managed by a working CPAP heads toward zero. On the substance, that description is accurate. It is only the "existing claims" mechanics that reach past what the bill says.

The honest version is the one neither the sponsors nor the loudest critics are leading with. If you hold your rating, you keep it. If you file after this becomes law, you file under criteria built to pay less. And because it would be statute rather than a stalled proposal, it is no longer something the next VA Secretary can quietly drop.

Why this lands harder on this audience than almost any other

Tinnitus and sleep apnea are not edge cases for the people who read this site. Tinnitus is the most-claimed condition, period. Sleep apnea is one of the most common and most valuable secondary claims in the system. If you spend any time here, the odds are high that you are rated for one of these, planning to claim one, or helping someone who is.

That is what makes this offset different from most VA policy. It does not trim a benefit at the edges. It rewrites the two conditions sitting in the dead center of the bell curve. A change to a rare condition affects a few thousand veterans. A change to tinnitus and sleep apnea affects the pipeline almost everyone passes through.

The fight over it

The benefits are not in dispute. The pay-for is. That distinction is the entire fight.

On the support side, fiscal-conservative veterans groups like Americans for Prosperity and Concerned Veterans for America back the package precisely because the new spending is offset rather than added to the deficit. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth backed the Star Act. The logic is the Rand Paul logic: do not expand benefits without paying for them.

On the other side, the largest veterans service organizations oppose the offset, and they are pointed about it.

  • VFW National Commander Carol Whitmore: "The VFW refuses to accept the idea that one group of veterans must lose so another group of veterans can win."
  • DAV National Commander Coleman Nee rejected the premise that the only way to keep the promises made to past veterans is to cut benefits for future ones.
  • Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America opposed financing new benefits by restricting earned disability compensation for other disabled veterans.
  • Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee ranking member Richard Blumenthal: "Correcting this injustice for combat-injured veterans should be done without depriving other veterans of benefits they need and deserve."

Read those again and notice what nobody is saying. Nobody argues the Star Act is wrong. Nobody says survivors do not deserve a raise. The whole argument is about whether the next generation of disabled veterans should foot the bill for this one.

Does "fully offset" even hold together?

One honest caveat, because the brand here is that I tell you what I cannot prove. I cannot fully reconcile the math from public documents yet. The committee calls the package fully offset. The rating cut is scored at up to $57 billion over ten years. The Star Act is about $9 billion. The other 60-plus bills cost something, and a few of them, like the community-care expansion, are not cheap, but there is no single clean public total I can point you to, and the Congressional Budget Office score for the full package was not out when I wrote this. So "fully offset" is the sponsors' characterization, not a number I have verified. Whether $57 billion covers the whole package or leaves a gap is something I would want to see from CBO before I would state it as fact.

Everything above is what sits inside a 600-page bill. Here is what it means for the claim in front of you.

What this means for you right now

  • H.R. 9237 did not pass the House. House leaders pulled it from further consideration on July 16, 2026, after debate and a vote on the motion to recommit but before a final passage vote.
  • The proposed rating changes are not law. Current VA rating rules for tinnitus and sleep apnea remain in effect.
  • The Senate companion remains pending. S. 4744 was placed on the Senate calendar on June 11. It could still move, change, or stall.
  • If either version becomes law, the filing date would matter. The bill text says claims filed before enactment would use today's rules, while later claims would use the new criteria. It also protects compensation already in effect.
  • Treat this as a legislative proposal, not a current VA rule. If you are weighing a claim, work from the rules in effect and consult an accredited VSO, claims agent, or attorney for advice about your situation.

Bottom Line

The Take Care of America's Veterans Act proposed real gains for combat-injured retirees, severely disabled veterans, and survivors who have waited since 1993 for a raise. It also proposed paying for those gains by rewriting the two conditions most veterans actually claim, tinnitus and sleep apnea. H.R. 9237 was pulled from further House consideration on July 16 and is not law. S. 4744 remains pending in the Senate. For veterans, the immediate bottom line is simple: current rating rules remain in effect.

Sources and Limitations

  • Primary source: the full text of both the House bill (H.R. 9237, as introduced) and the Senate companion (S. 4744, as placed on the calendar), retrieved from govinfo.gov. Section 108 is identical in both. I quoted it directly, along with 38 U.S.C. § 1155, because the secondary summaries disagreed with each other on whether current ratings were at risk. The text settles it.
  • Legislative status: the House Veterans' Affairs Committee minority's July 16 statement says House leaders pulled H.R. 9237 from consideration. House Clerk Roll Call 249 records the vote on the motion to recommit, with no final passage vote recorded. GovInfo lists S. 4744 as placed on the Senate calendar on June 11, 2026.
  • Regulatory history: the VA's February 15, 2022 proposed rules for the ear, nose, and throat and respiratory body systems (Federal Register), which first proposed the tinnitus and sleep apnea changes and remain unfinalized; the existing-rating protection in 38 U.S.C. § 1155 and 38 CFR § 3.951; and the DAV's June 10, 2026 statement opposing the package.
  • Cost and impact figures ($57 billion over ten years, up to 1.5 million veterans, about $9 billion for the Star Act, roughly 54,000 combat-injured retirees, 7,000 SMC recipients, 549,000 survivors) come from the Congressional Budget Office and from reporting by Newsweek, We Are The Mighty, and Task & Purpose, plus statements from the VFW, DAV, IAVA, and Senator Blumenthal. These are attributed, not my own count.
  • Limitations:
  • The policy analysis reflects the bills introduced in June 2026. Legislative status can change after this July 23 update, and any bill that advances could be amended.
  • I do not have a full CBO score for the entire package, so I cannot independently confirm the "fully offset" claim.
  • Dollar comparisons use the 2025 rating schedule for a veteran with no dependents. Your own numbers shift with dependents and with the annual cost-of-living adjustment.

Disclaimer

I am not accredited by VA, not a lawyer, not a VSO. This is analysis of a bill in Congress, not claim advice, and a bill in progress is not the law. If you need help with your claim, work with an accredited representative. You can find one at VA.gov.

-Landon Founder, Claim Raven | U.S. Army Veteran