This one costs money
Sleep apnea and tinnitus: file before it passes
This is the single most useful fact about this bill, and it is the one most write-ups leave out.
Section 108 would change how VA rates two of the most commonly claimed conditions: obstructive sleep
apnea and tinnitus — ringing in the ears. The criteria for the higher grades get tighter.
A rating already being paid is protected. Section 108(c)(2) protects compensation in effect the
day before the bill would become law. If you are already rated and being paid, that payment is not
clawed back.
A claim filed after that day is not. The bill's own applicability line says the changes
“shall apply with respect to claims filed after the date of the enactment of this Act.”
That reaches any veteran — including one who separated twenty years ago. It is not limited
to people still in uniform.
Tinnitus today is compensable at 10 percent on its own. The bill would take away that separate
rating except narrowly, where it accompanies hearing loss that is not itself compensable.
What I would do. If you have sleep apnea or ringing in the ears and you have never filed a claim
for it, file it. Filing costs you nothing and the date you file is what protects you. Start at
va.gov/disability, or sit down with an accredited
Veterans Service Officer at no charge. Do not wait to see what Congress does.
★ The filing date is the whole ballgame.
Retired pay
Major Richard Star Act — who it reaches, and when
Section 101. Real money for a specific group. Read the group carefully.
Today, if you were medically retired under chapter 61 — disability retirement — with
fewer than 20 years of service, your military retired pay is reduced dollar for dollar by your VA
disability compensation. That reduction is called the offset.
Section 101 would stop that offset from being applied to a chapter 61 retiree whose disability is
combat-related. You would draw chapter 61 retired pay and VA compensation side by side.
Two limits, stated plainly.
1. It reaches chapter 61 retirees with a combat-related disability. If you retired at 20 years
under regular retirement rather than chapter 61, or your disability was never adjudicated
combat-related, this section does not reach you.
2. It removes the offset. It does not recalculate your retired pay upward to a 20-year figure.
The amount of the retired pay itself is unchanged.
And it does not start on the day it is signed. Section 101(e) sets the effective date at
January 1, 2027, applying to payments for months beginning on or after that date. Even if this
bill were signed tomorrow, nothing is payable before then. Do not budget around an earlier check.
The House Committee on Veterans' Affairs majority estimates this would reach roughly
54,000 combat-wounded veterans. That is a committee estimate, not a final government score.
★ Combat-related. Chapter 61. January 2027.
Survivors
Love Lives On Act — it is the age test that goes away
Section 102. This one gets described backwards constantly, and the backwards version
tells the wrong widow she is out of luck.
Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) is the monthly tax-free payment VA makes to a
surviving spouse, child or parent of a service member or veteran whose death was service connected.
Already the law: a surviving spouse who remarries at age 55 or older keeps DIC. That has
been in place since January 5, 2021 under 38 CFR 3.55. For remarriages on or after December 16, 2003,
the line was age 57. If that is you, you do not need this bill.
What Section 102 would actually do: strike the age test entirely. The bill's words —
“The remarriage of a surviving spouse shall not bar the furnishing of benefits under section
1311 or 1562 of this title.” DIC would continue no matter what age you remarried. If you
remarried at 40, you are exactly who this section is written for.
Three more rights in the same section that almost never get printed:
- Survivors who already remarried below the age line could have benefits resumed going forward
- A Survivor Benefit Plan annuity — the military retiree's own survivor annuity —
could not be terminated solely because the surviving spouse remarries
- TRICARE health coverage restored to a remarried widow or widower whose later marriage ended
by death, divorce or annulment
Separately, Section 103 would extend the increased DIC rate to surviving spouses of
veterans who died of ALS. Today the increase generally requires the veteran to have been rated
totally disabling for eight continuous years before death; ALS often kills faster than that, which shuts
those survivors out. The section would drop that eight-year requirement for ALS deaths and reach back to
deaths in past years.
Do not guess at your own DIC status from a bill that has not passed. Check what you are entitled to
today at
va.gov/disability/dependency-indemnity-compensation,
and get current payment rates from VA's own rate page rather than from any flyer, mine included.
★ The age test is the thing being removed.
Your claim
Three changes to how claims are handled
- Section 105 — missed exam. VA could not deny a claim solely because the veteran
did not appear for a scheduled VA medical examination. A missed compensation and pension exam is one of
the most common ways a good claim dies. The section also adds tracking and quality checks on appeals.
- Section 107 — automation. VA would be required to submit a plan for using
automation tools to process claims. Not a study. A plan. If you have a view on a computer touching your
file, this is the provision to have it about.
- Section 111 — military sexual trauma. Improvements to how VA processes MST-related
claims and how it reaches the veterans who have them.
None of this is in force. If VA schedules you for an exam today, go, or call and reschedule
before the date. Under current rules a no-show can still sink the claim.
★ Go to the exam. Today's rules still apply.
Home loans
The fee increases — and the pro that is also a con
Section 104. If you are planning a refinance, this is the number you need.
Section 104(b) raises rows of the VA loan fee table:
- Interest Rate Reduction Refinancing Loan (IRRRL) — the VA streamline refinance —
fee goes from 0.50% to 1.42%. That is nearly triple.
- Loan assumption — where a buyer takes over your existing VA loan — fee goes from
0.50% to 1.00%.
Read this twice. Section 104(c) creates a new VA home loan eligibility category for certain
Guard and Reserve service. That is listed as a win. But the same section adds 1.00 percentage point
to the fee for a borrower who qualifies only under that new category. The expansion is partly
paid for by the new borrowers it covers. The pro and the con are the same provision.
I am not printing the exact length-of-service threshold for that new Guard and Reserve category. It
turns on a minimum period of service after entry-level and skill training, tied to service on or after
September 11, 2001, and I could not confirm the exact number to the standard I hold myself to. If it
matters to you, read Section 104(c) in the bill text linked at the top of this page and take the words to
a VA-approved lender rather than to me.
★ If an IRRRL is on your mind, watch this section.
Also in it
The rest of the package
H.R. 9237 bundles more than 60 separate veterans bills into one.
- Section 104(a) — Special Monthly Compensation. A supplemental monthly allowance for
certain veterans at the higher SMC levels. SMC is the extra compensation VA pays above the normal
disability rates for the most severe losses. I am not printing a dollar figure. The only number
that exists sits in an unpassed bill and has never been a payable rate.
- Section 206 — Transition Assistance Program and SkillBridge. Improvements to the
classes and the civilian work placement program you go through on the way out.
- Section 302 — caregivers. Reemployment and retirement protections for Family
caregivers, alongside the existing Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers
(PCAFC).
- VA operations and facilities. The package carries portions titled the VITAL Act of 2026 and
the Veterans Infrastructure and Transformation Act of 2026. Whether that is modernization or disruption
is opinion, and both sides have one.
One thing I looked for and did not find: a provision cutting who can enroll in VA health care or
changing the VA priority groups. The two ratings this bill puts a hand on are sleep apnea and tinnitus.
If somebody tells you it strips your health care enrollment, ask them for the section number.
★ Sixty-plus bills, one vote.
Who is where
Veterans groups are split down the middle
Both lists are published by the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs. You deserve the
names, not “groups are divided.”
Opposed — minority release of July 9, 2026: VFW, DAV, IAVA, Marine Corps League, Jewish
War Veterans of the USA, Student Veterans of America, National Veterans Legal Services Program, National
Organization of Veterans Advocates, Reserve Organization of America, Swords to Plowshares, Burn Pits 360,
Service Women's Action Network, Minority Veterans of America, and others — joined by the Mortgage
Bankers Association and the National Consumer Law Center, whose objection is to the home loan fee
increases.
Read their statement.
Supporting — majority release of July 13, 2026: The American Legion, MOAA, Wounded Warrior
Project, AMVETS, Vietnam Veterans of America, TAPS, Gold Star Spouses of America, Military Order of the
Purple Heart, National Military Family Association, Elizabeth Dole Foundation, K9s For Warriors, Mission
Roll Call, and others — while saying in the same breath that
“Legislating changes to the Veterans Affairs Schedule for Rating Disabilities (VASRD) is not a
standard path, and under ordinary circumstances it is not an approach we would support.”
Read their statement.
A Statement of
Administration Policy dated July 15, 2026 supports the bill, raises reservations about provisions
touching the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and executive privilege, and notes that a final
cost score was not yet available.
★ If your own VSO is on one of these lists, ask them why.
What you can do
Three moves, today
- File the claim you have been sitting on. Sleep apnea, tinnitus, or anything else. Today's
rules are today's rules, and your filing date is the thing that protects you.
- Read the actual text. Not a flyer, not mine.
The
introduced bill on govinfo.gov is the only official version that exists.
- Call your Representative. Find yours at
house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative,
or go through the House switchboard at 202-224-3121. A 210 to 211 vote means one office
hearing from one veteran is not a small thing.
★ Your file, your words, your Representative.