VA Pay Bill Introduced
June 18, 2004 - Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pa.) June 1 introduced
the "Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care Personnel Enhancement
Act of 2003" (S.
2484). Commonly referred to as the "VA Pay Bill,"
the legislation would seek to establish an improved and simplified
pay structure for VA physicians that would increase salaries and
make VA more competitive with the private sector. Although not spelled
out specifically in the legislation, the current version of the
legislation proposes to benchmark VA physician salaries at the 50th
percentile of the AAMC's Associate Professor compensation. The AAMC
testified
on the proposal before the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on
Health on October 21, 2003 [see Washington
Highlights, Oct. 10, 2003]. In his statement, Thomas Lawley,
M.D., dean of the Emory University School of Medicine and chairman
of the AAMC's VA-Deans Liaison Committee, testified in support of
the proposal and recommended that the new system be benchmarked
at the 75th percentile, a change that would provide an increase
for over 99 percent of VA physicians, versus the 30 percent that
would receive raises with a benchmark at the 50th percentile.
Information:
Jonathan Fishburn, Director, Research, Education and Veterans' Legislative Affairs
AAMC Government Relations
jfishburn@aamc.org
(202) 828-0525
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