If you want to know how the government really feels about veterans, look at their checkbook. For years, we have watched the Department of Veterans Affairs set billions of dollars on fire. We’ve watched the Electronic Health Record (EHR) debacle unfold—a system that was supposed to save lives but instead endangered patients and wasted taxpayer money on a scale that would land a private CEO in prison.
Now, Congress is pushing S. 1591, the Acquisition Reform and Cost Assessment Act of 2025.
And what is their solution to decades of incompetence? More managers.
The Admission of Guilt: We Let Amateurs Run the Show
Let’s be clear about what this bill represents: it is a legislative admission of guilt. The bill explicitly mandates that managers of major programs must now have “Level 3 project management certifications.”
Think about that. Until now, the people in charge of billion-dollar programs for veterans weren’t required to be certified project managers? Who has been running the ship this whole time?
The Proof: Look no further than the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Aurora, Colorado.
The Price Tag: Originally budgeted at roughly $600 million, the project ballooned to over $1.7 billion. That is a $1 billion cost overrun.
The Failure: How did this happen? The VA demanded “custom glass” and expensive curved walls that had zero impact on patient care, all while hiring a contractor before they even had a finished design.
The Result: The contractor sued the VA and won because the agency breached its own contract. The project was five years late. If the managers in charge had been certified professionals rather than bureaucrats, would we have wasted a billion dollars that could have gone to veteran suicide prevention or disability claims?
S. 1591 finally says “you need to be qualified to spend money,” but it is twenty years too late.
The “New” Bureaucracy: Another Layer of Red Tape
The ARCA Act plans to strip purchasing power from the VHA (hospitals) and VBA (benefits) and centralize it all under a new “Chief Acquisition Officer.” They are creating a “Director of Cost Assessment,” “Program Executive Officers,” and “Deputy Assistant Secretaries.”
On paper, this looks like accountability. In reality, it looks like a massive expansion of the Senior Executive Service.
The Proof: The VA’s supply chain has been on the GAO’s “High Risk List” since 2019, and for good reason.
The Reality: Recent GAO reports found that while the VA met “process goals” (checking boxes), they often failed to track actual savings. They have “category leads” for spending who, in many cases, hadn’t even taken the required training for their roles.
The Risk: By centralizing everything, we risk paralyzing the hospitals. Imagine a surgeon in Phoenix needing a specific heart valve, but the request is stuck on the desk of a “Deputy Assistant Secretary for Logistics” in Washington D.C. who has never stepped foot in an operating room. Creating a “Office of Acquisition” doesn’t guarantee efficiency; it often guarantees that the people making decisions are further away from the veterans they serve.
Will It Actually Work? The Billion-Dollar Question
We have heard this song before. “Reorganization” is the favorite buzzword of a failing agency.
The Proof: The Oracle Cerner Electronic Health Record (EHR) rollout.
The Cost: The government has poured billions into this system.
The Damage: It didn’t just waste money; it hurt people. The system sent prescriptions to “unknown queues” where they disappeared, leading to missed medications for veterans. It crashed for huge spans of time (over 80 hours in some reports).
The “Fix”: The VA announced a “reset” in 2023. Two years later, we are still talking about “future deployments” in 2026 and 2031.
The Lesson: The VA already had oversight when this contract was signed. They had leaders. And yet, they signed a deal that allowed for unacceptable performance. S. 1591 creates a “Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation” (CAPE) to audit these programs. That sounds nice, but where were the auditors when the EHR satisfaction rates among VA staff plummeted to 7%?
A new org chart cannot fix a culture that tolerates failure.
Our Demand
We are tired of “reforms” that simply reshuffle the deck chairs. If S. 1591 passes, we don’t want to see a press release about “new leadership.” We want to see:
Fired Incompetents: If the new “Independent Verification” finds a program is failing (like the Aurora hospital or the EHR), fire the people responsible. Don’t move them to a different department.
Cost Savings: Show us that the billions you save are going back into patient care, not into the pockets of the new “Deputy Assistant Secretary for Procurement.”
The VA works for us. They have proven they cannot manage their own wallet. This bill puts them on a tight leash. Now, we have to pull it.
This video provides a clear visual breakdown of the Aurora hospital project referenced in the blog, highlighting how management failures led to massive cost overruns.