The chief of the West Virginia Hospital Association expressed concern over potential Trump administration changes to temporary, non-immigrant visas intended to let U.S. employers hire foreign workers with specialty skills.
“We are very, very concerned about that barrier — getting foreign trained providers into the United States,” Jim Kaufman, president of the association, said on MetroNews Talkline.
“West Virginia, rural communities all across the country, use those programs to try to improve access. I know there has been talk in D.C. about exempting out healthcare, but we have not seen anything at this point.”
President Trump signed a proclamation late last month calling for a $100,000 annual fee on organizations for each individual working under an H-1B visa. The current fee is $215.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit this past week over the proposed fee, maintaining it is unlawful because it overrides provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act that govern the H-1B program, including the requirement that fees be based on the costs incurred by the government in processing visas.
Businesses of all kinds have benefited from the program to recruit global talent, said Neil Bradley, chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber.
“The president has said he wants to educate, attract, and retain the world’s best and brightest in the U.S., and the Chamber shares that goal,” Bradley said.
Much of the national news coverage of this issue has focused on the effects on tech sectors. But in West Virginia, where rural hospitals are challenged to recruit medical personnel, any changes to the H-1B visa program are being watched with interest.
With a shortage of physicians and healthcare workers across the country, the H-1B visa program plays a critical role in allowing hospitals and academic medical centers to recruit highly skilled physicians and other health care professionals, ensuring continued access to care for communities and patients.
This is especially true in rural areas where shortages of health care works are well documented. West Virginia, Iowa and North Dakota had the largest share of physician applicants under the H-1B visa relative to total physicians, according to Stateline.
Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., expressed concern over how the big fees could affect rural healthcare in a national Politico news story headlined “Trump’s new $100K visa fee could pummel red state hospitals.”
“It alarmed a lot of people,” Capito said in the Politico article. “In rural areas, this is critical health care delivery. We’ve got to keep it.”
Senator Jim Justice, R-W.Va., does not appear to have made any public statements about H-1B visas and their effects on staffing for rural healthcare providers.
In 2024, 16,937 individuals were granted H-1B visas for medicine and health occupations, and half of those were doctors and surgeons, according to federal data.
The American Hospital Association has continued to warn that the fee would undermine hospitals’ ability to hire H1-B visa holders including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, clinical lab experts and other healthcare workers.
The association has urged that the health care workforce be exempted from the big new fee.
“Given the staffing and financial challenges our hospitals are already facing, the increased petition fees would likely prevent many of them from continuing to recruit essential health care staff and could force a reduction in the services they are able to provide,” wrote Rick Pollack, chief of the American Hospital Association.
Similarly, the American Medical Association has urged an exemption for physicians: “The U.S. health care workforce relies upon physicians from other countries to provide high-quality and accessible patient care,” physician organizations like the AMA wrote in an open letter.