Florida Rep. Steube Aims To Stop Taxpayer Dollars From Funding Non-U.S. Citizen Doctor Training
U.S. Representative Greg Steube, a Republican from Florida, introduced two new pieces of legislation on Monday called the GME Transparency Act of 2026 and the Our Doctors First Act of 2026. This two-bill package wants to change how the federal government funds the training of new doctors after they graduate from medical school.
When people finish medical school, they must complete hands-on training at hospitals. This training is called a residency or graduate medical education. Currently, the federal Medicare program spends billions of tax dollars every year to help hospitals pay for things like resident stipends, doctor salaries, and building costs.
The first bill, the GME Transparency Act of 2026, would force hospitals to report the citizenship and immigration status of all their medical residents. The hospitals would not give out names, but they would have to show the government how many of their residents are U.S. citizens, green card holders, or temporary visa holders. If a hospital refuses to share this data, the government would stop giving them Medicare funding for their training programs. Under this bill, the government would also have to publish a yearly report showing these numbers for every state.
The second bill, the Our Doctors First Act of 2026, goes a step further by completely banning Medicare from paying for the training of any resident who is not a U.S. citizen or a U.S. national. Hospitals and clinics that ignore this rule and knowingly ask for money to train non-citizen residents would face heavy financial penalties. For a first mistake, the hospital would lose a quarter of that resident’s funding. A second mistake would cost the hospital a 1 million dollar fine. If a hospital breaks the rule three or more times, the government would stop giving them any medical education funding for 5 to 10 years.
Representative Steube explained that these bills are meant to protect American money and make sure the public knows where federal cash is going.
“Taxpayers deserve transparency on how federal healthcare dollars are being spent, especially when billions in Medicare funding are going toward GME programs,” Rep. Greg Steube said. “Congress has a responsibility to know who is benefiting from these taxpayer-funded programs and to ban Medicare GME payments from being used to support residency training for foreign nationals.”
Both bills have been officially introduced in the House of Representatives and sent to a congressional committee for review. If passed, the ban on funding and the new penalty system would take effect exactly one year after the legislation is signed into law.