For tens of thousands of veterans who were medically retired because a combat injury ended their careers early, every dollar of disability compensation they earn is quietly clawed back out of their retirement pay. A bill moving through Congress would end that dollar-for-dollar offset for combat-injured retirees who served fewer than 20 years, and the sponsors estimate it would put roughly $1,200 more a month, on average, into the hands of about 54,000 households. The measure has broad bipartisan support, yet it has been blocked from a floor vote more than once, leaving the money on the table for now.
Why combat-injured retirees lose money twice
The problem comes down to a rule called the concurrent-receipt ban. Under current law, a military retiree with fewer than 20 years of service generally cannot collect both their full Defense Department retirement pay and their full Department of Veterans Affairs disability compensation at the same time. Instead, the retirement check is reduced dollar-for-dollar by the amount of the VA disability payment. Career retirees with 20 or more years already escaped this offset through a program called Concurrent Retirement and Disability Pay, or CRDP, which was phased in years ago.
The veterans left out are the ones whose injuries were severe enough to force a medical retirement before they could reach that 20-year mark. Because their service was cut short by wounds, they never qualified for CRDP, so the offset still applies to them. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service explains the mechanics of the existing concurrent-receipt program and confirms that it currently requires 20 years of service, which is precisely the threshold combat-medical retirees could not meet.
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What the Major Richard Star Act would change
The legislation, named for an Army combat veteran who died of a service-connected illness, would extend concurrent receipt to medically retired veterans with combat-related disabilities regardless of how many years they served. In plain terms, it would stop the offset for this group so that a wounded retiree could keep both their earned retirement pay and their VA disability compensation in full. The text of H.R. 2102 amends Title 10 of the U.S. Code to remove the years-of-service requirement for those whose disabilities are combat-related.
Because it is still a bill, not a law, nothing changes for a retiree’s check until it passes both chambers and is signed. The title’s language is deliberately conditional: veterans could gain this money if the measure becomes law. Anyone counting on the increase should treat it as a proposal under active debate rather than a payment on the way.
The dollar figures vary widely by rank, disability rating, and how many years a veteran served before being retired. Advocacy groups estimate the average restored amount lands around $1,200 a month, but individual outcomes range from a few hundred dollars to well over $2,000 monthly depending on the specifics of each case.
Where the bill stands, and why it keeps stalling
Support is not the obstacle. Veterans Service Organizations have pushed the measure for years, and Disabled American Veterans has campaigned for it as a top legislative priority, citing the roughly 50,000-plus combat-injured medical retirees who would benefit. In the current Congress the bill collected hundreds of cosponsors across both parties in the House and a large bipartisan bloc in the Senate, numbers that would normally signal easy passage.
The sticking point has been cost and procedure. Restoring concurrent receipt for this group carries a multibillion-dollar price tag over a decade, and efforts to move the bill by unanimous consent have been objected to on the Senate floor more than once, most recently in mid-2026. Each objection sends the measure back to waiting for a scheduled vote or an attachment to a larger defense package, which is how narrowly targeted benefit bills often eventually advance.
For affected retirees, the practical takeaway is patience paired with attention. The offset remains in force today, and the additional roughly $1,200 a month is not yet flowing to anyone. If the bill clears both chambers, the change would apply going forward to eligible combat-related medical retirees, and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service would be the agency adjusting the monthly pay.
Until then, the story is a reminder of how much a single procedural rule can cost a household. A veteran wounded badly enough to be retired early is treated, under the current offset, as if the retirement pay and the disability pay were interchangeable rather than separately earned. The Major Richard Star Act exists to draw that distinction, and its long march through Congress shows how hard it can be to move even a broadly popular fix when it comes with a bill attached.
This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI and reviewed by The Money Overview editorial team.
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