The bill
VA Contracting and Procurement Act
HR. 6549, 119th Congress — read as touching Defense Contractors.
VA Contracting and Procurement Act
Download PDFBill ID: 119/hr/6549
Last Updated: July 22, 2026
Sponsored by
Rep. Bergman, Jack [R-MI-1]
ID: B001301
Follow the money
The sponsor
Rep. Bergman, Jack [R-MI-1]
Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.
The money
$98,435 raised
26 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.
The alignment
65% match to Project 2025
This bill's text tracks the "Introduction" section, p. 679-681 of the Mandate for Leadership.
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Latest Action
Committee Hearings Held
May 19, 2026
Introduced
Committee Review
📍 Current Status
Next: The bill moves to the floor for full chamber debate and voting.
🗳️
Floor Action
✅
Passed House
🏛️
Senate Review
🎉
Passed Congress
🖊️
Presidential Action
⚖️
Became Law
📚 How does a bill become a law?
1. Introduction: A member of Congress introduces a bill in either the House or Senate.
2. Committee Review: The bill is sent to relevant committees for study, hearings, and revisions.
3. Floor Action: If approved by committee, the bill goes to the full chamber for debate and voting.
4. Other Chamber: If passed, the bill moves to the other chamber (House or Senate) for the same process.
5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater. Let's dissect the "VA Contracting and Procurement Act" (HR 6549) and see what's really going on here.
**Diagnosis:** This bill is a classic case of "Regulatory Capture Syndrome," where special interests have hijacked the legislative process to serve their own needs, while pretending to care about veterans' welfare.
**Symptoms:**
1. **New regulations being created or modified:** The bill introduces new limitations on the Secretary of Veterans Affairs' ability to obligate or expend funds for contracts and agreements, with a $50 million cap unless specifically authorized by law. 2. **Affected industries and sectors:** The main beneficiaries of this bill are likely to be defense contractors, healthcare providers, and IT companies that do business with the VA. They'll get more opportunities to bid on lucrative contracts, while the VA's ability to negotiate prices will be limited. 3. **Compliance requirements and timelines:** The bill requires the Secretary to submit notifications to Congress for proposed agreements exceeding $50 million, which will create a new layer of bureaucratic red tape. This will slow down the contracting process, allowing favored contractors to get a head start on the competition. 4. **Enforcement mechanisms and penalties:** There are no significant enforcement mechanisms or penalties in place to prevent abuse or ensure compliance with these regulations. It's all just window dressing.
**Underlying disease:**
This bill is a textbook example of how special interests use regulatory capture to line their pockets at taxpayers' expense. By limiting the VA's ability to negotiate contracts, this bill will drive up costs and reduce competition, ultimately benefiting a select few companies that have lobbied for these changes.
**Prognosis:** This bill will likely pass with little scrutiny, as politicians are too busy grandstanding about veterans' welfare to actually read the fine print. Meanwhile, the real beneficiaries – defense contractors and healthcare providers – will be laughing all the way to the bank.
**Treatment:** The only cure for this disease is transparency and accountability. We need to shine a light on the special interests driving these regulations and hold politicians accountable for their actions. But don't hold your breath; in Washington, D.C., the only thing more abundant than hypocrisy is the willingness to sell out to the highest bidder.
Related Topics
Military & Veterans AffairsDefense Spending & Procurement
Generated using Llama 3.1 70B (Dr. Haus personality)
💰 Campaign Finance Network
Rep. Bergman, Jack [R-MI-1]
Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle
Total Contributions
$98,435
21 donors
PACs
$0
Organizations
$19,100
Committees
$0
Individuals
$79,335
No PAC contributions found
1
POARCH BAND OF CREEK INDIANS
$6,600
2
MATCH-E-BE-NASH-SHE-WISH BAND OF POTTAWATOMI INDIANS
$3,300
3
SAGINAW CHIPPEWA INDIAN TRIBE
$3,300
4
PECHANGA BAND OF LUISENO INDIANS
$3,000
5
SAULT STE MARIE TRIBE OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS
$2,900
No committee contributions found
1
DRESNER, LINDA
$9,900
2
LEVY, EDWARD
$9,900
3
TAYLOR, MARGARETTA J. MS
$9,900
4
GREENBLATT, SCOTT
$6,600
5
COTTON, MICHAEL D. MR.
$6,600
6
ALI, RAO
$3,435
7
JAVED, MOHAMMAD S.
$3,300
8
DANIELS, GEORGE G. MR
$3,300
9
KELLY, JOHN J. MR.
$3,300
10
RITCHIE, STEPHEN
$3,300
11
GUIDRY, SHANE
$3,300
12
LUCKEY, PALMER
$3,300
13
COLEMAN, NEIL S
$3,300
14
DOLL, DAVID M. MR.
$3,300
15
CATZ, SAFRA
$3,300
16
DE VOS, BETSY
$3,300
Donor Network - Rep. Bergman, Jack [R-MI-1]
PACs
Organizations
Individuals
Politicians
Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.
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Showing 53 nodes and 26 connections (57 secondary connections hidden)
Total contributions: $98,435
Top Donors - Rep. Bergman, Jack [R-MI-1]
Showing top 21 donors by contribution amount
5 Orgs16 Individuals
Industry Impact
Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 8 harmed.
- −Defense Contractorsconfidence 0.90
Section 2(a) limits VA contracts to $50M unless specifically authorized by law, affecting defense contractors who supply prosthetics, surgical implants, and health-care items to the VA.
- −Medical Devicesconfidence 0.90
Section 2(a) imposes a $50M cap on VA contracts for agreements under Section 513, which includes procurement of prosthetic appliances and surgical implants, directly impacting medical device manufacturers.
- −Hospitals & Health Systemsconfidence 0.85
Section 2(b) limits VA obligations for Veterans Community Care Program agreements to $50M unless authorized, affecting hospitals and health systems that provide care to veterans under this program.
- −Biotech & Researchconfidence 0.80
Section 2(d) limits VA obligations for educational benefits agreements under Chapter 36 to $50M unless authorized, which could affect biotech firms involved in VA research or training programs.
- −Electric Utilitiesconfidence 0.75
Section 2(e) limits VA obligations for benefits under Chapter 53 to $50M unless authorized, which could include utility-related services or contracts affecting electric utilities that serve VA facilities.
- −Pipelines & Energy Infrastructureconfidence 0.70
Section 2(f) adds domestic preference requirements for health-care items in emergency caches, which could affect energy infrastructure firms if their products are considered health-care items or if procurement preferences shift.
+ 2 more industries not shown.
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.
Introduction
Moderate65.3%
Pages: 679-681
— 646 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 3. Section 121 (developing and administering an education program that teaches veterans about their health care options available from the Department of Veterans Affairs). 4. Section 152 (returning the Office for Innovation of Care and Payment to the Office of Enterprise Integration with a joint governance process set up with the VHA). 5. Section 161 (overhauling Family Caregiver Program expansion, which has gone poorly, so that it focuses on consistency of eligibility and awareness that the most severely wounded or injured may require the program indefinitely). l Require the VHA to report publicly on all aspects of its operation, including quality, safety, patient experience, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness, using standards similar to those in the Medicare Accountable Care Organization program so that the government may monitor and achieve continuous improvement in the VA system more effectively. l Encourage VA Medical Centers to seek out relevant academic and private- sector input in their communities to improve the overall patient experience. Budget l Conduct an independent audit of the VA similar to the 2018 Department of Defense (DOD) audit to identify IT, management, financial, contracting, and other deficiencies. l Assess the misalignment of VHA facilities and rising infrastructure costs. The VHA operates 172 inpatient medical facilities nationally that are an average of 60 years old. Some of these facilities are underutilized and inadequately staffed. Facilities in certain urban and rural areas are seeing significant declines in the veteran population and strong competition for fresh medical staff. In 2018, Congress authorized an Asset Infrastructure Review (AIR) of national VHA medical markets to provide insight into where the VA health care budget should be responsibly allocated to serve veterans most effectively. However, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee lacked the political will to act on the White House’s nominations of commission members, and this ultimately led to termination of the AIR process. The next Administration should seek out agile, creative, and politically acceptable operational solutions to this aging infrastructure status quo,
Introduction
Moderate65.3%
Pages: 679-681
— 646 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 3. Section 121 (developing and administering an education program that teaches veterans about their health care options available from the Department of Veterans Affairs). 4. Section 152 (returning the Office for Innovation of Care and Payment to the Office of Enterprise Integration with a joint governance process set up with the VHA). 5. Section 161 (overhauling Family Caregiver Program expansion, which has gone poorly, so that it focuses on consistency of eligibility and awareness that the most severely wounded or injured may require the program indefinitely). l Require the VHA to report publicly on all aspects of its operation, including quality, safety, patient experience, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness, using standards similar to those in the Medicare Accountable Care Organization program so that the government may monitor and achieve continuous improvement in the VA system more effectively. l Encourage VA Medical Centers to seek out relevant academic and private- sector input in their communities to improve the overall patient experience. Budget l Conduct an independent audit of the VA similar to the 2018 Department of Defense (DOD) audit to identify IT, management, financial, contracting, and other deficiencies. l Assess the misalignment of VHA facilities and rising infrastructure costs. The VHA operates 172 inpatient medical facilities nationally that are an average of 60 years old. Some of these facilities are underutilized and inadequately staffed. Facilities in certain urban and rural areas are seeing significant declines in the veteran population and strong competition for fresh medical staff. In 2018, Congress authorized an Asset Infrastructure Review (AIR) of national VHA medical markets to provide insight into where the VA health care budget should be responsibly allocated to serve veterans most effectively. However, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee lacked the political will to act on the White House’s nominations of commission members, and this ultimately led to termination of the AIR process. The next Administration should seek out agile, creative, and politically acceptable operational solutions to this aging infrastructure status quo, — 647 — Department of Veterans Affairs reimagine the health care footprint in some locales, and spur a realignment of capacity through budgetary allocations. Specifically: 1. Embrace the expansion of Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) as an avenue to maintain a VA footprint in challenging medical markets without investing further in obsolete and unaffordable VA health care campuses. 2. Explore the potential to pilot facility-sharing partnerships between the VA and strained local health care systems to reduce costs by leveraging limited talent and resources. Personnel l Extend the term of the Under Secretary for Health (USH) to five years. Additionally, authority should be given to reappoint this individual for a second five-year term both to allow for continuity and to protect the USH from political transition. l Establish a Senior Executive Service (SES) position of VHA Care System Chief Information Officer (CIO), selected by and reporting to the chief of the VHA Care System with a dotted line to the VA CIO. l Identify a workflow process to bring wait times in compliance with VA MISSION Act–required time frames wherever possible. 1. Assess the daily clinical appointment load for physicians and clinical staff in medical facilities where wait times for care are well outside of the time frames required by the VA MISSION Act. 2. Require VHA facilities to increase the number of patients seen each day to equal the number seen by DOD medical facilities: approximately 19 patients per provider per day. Currently, VA facilities may be seeing as few as six patients per provider per day. 3. Consider a pilot program to extend weekday appointment hours and offer Saturday appointment options to veterans if a facility continues to demonstrate that it has excess capacity and is experiencing delays in the delivery of care for veterans. 4. Identify clinical services that are consistently in high demand but require cost-prohibitive compensation to recruit and retain talent, and examine exceptions for higher competitive pay.
Introduction
Moderate62.9%
Pages: 682-684
— 650 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise Toxins, has led to historic increases in mandatory VBA spending in recent years. The VA has a time-phased plan to reassess the VASRD and its ratings for com- pensation, but this internal process can be slow and laborious, requires Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approvals, and can become politically charged both in Congress and with VSOs. l The next Administration should explore how VASRD reviews could be accelerated with clearance from OMB to target significant cost savings from revising disability rating awards for future claimants while preserving them fully or partially for existing claimants. l The VBA’s Information Technology top-line budget should be reexamined and reassessed in light of the need for expanded automation across the enterprise. l Traditionally, VHA captures the large majority of VA IT funding. The VBA needs to make the case for a larger IT budget with clear requirements to support that request. Personnel l Pursue reforms of the Human Capital Management process and operations within the VBA to build a more blended workforce with more contractors to process claims. This would free federal employees to perform other duties and be involved solely with the final decision to award benefits. l Improve the VBA acquisition workforce. The VBA needs more world-class contractor support. Currently, few of the top companies have contracts with the VBA, and the VBA needs to conduct more outreach to the private sector through senior leader engagement and industry conferences. l To identify more effective and efficient ways to complete claims, establish a knowledge exchange program with top-tier private-sector companies that do similar work. The VBA is fundamentally a financial services organization. A significant amount of its work has a private-sector analogue that could be leveraged to improve service to veterans. l For most of its existence, the VBA has been a risk-averse, insular, paper-based organization, implementing technology only over the past decade. This insularity has led to a predominantly “build it ourselves” approach, partly because VBA staff has limited experience or insight into current private- sector tools and methods and partly because the VBA struggles to compete — 651 — Department of Veterans Affairs with the VHA for IT funding. Senior executive leadership needs more innovators and trail blazers—qualities that have sometimes been lacking in the VBA’s senior ranks. Recruiting a more relevantly knowledgeable and technologically savvy team, along with robust political control of the VA, could bring about better solutions to the VBA’s workflow challenges. HUMAN RESOURCES AND ADMINISTRATION (HRA) Needed Reforms l Rescind all delegations of authority promulgated by the VA under the prior Administration. l Transfer all career SES out of PA/PAS-designated positions on the first day and ensure political control of the VA. l Take a close and analytically critical look at where hybrid and remote work is a net positive as a functional necessity and where in-person collaboration and presence will help to instill a strong work ethic and a more cohesive environment for productivity from the Office of the Secretary across the headquarters enterprise. The COVID-19 pandemic spurred a significant shift to hybrid and telework options for large segments of the staff in the Washington headquarters, in its sat- ellites, and at some VBA Regional Offices. The “remote work” expectation has been amplified and formalized within the Biden Administration team at VA to the extent that the current Secretary, Deputy Secretary, and their staffs are not “in office” as a matter of a routine presence while VA staff in Washington, D.C., have limited in-person meetings, relying more frequently on video conference calls. The short-term and long-term effects of this policy on the department are unknown, but generally, the policy may be undermining the cohesiveness and competencies of some staff functions and diluting general organizational accountability and responsiveness. Budget l Expedite the acquisition of a new Human Resources Information Technology (HRIT) system. The current system is not user-friendly; has minimal fusion, middle-ware capacity; and is not conducive to data driven personnel decisions. Personnel data needs to be organized and managed to its full potential. The HRIT system, associated databases, and other “shadow” personnel systems have no shortage of data; the problem comes with effective management of the data.
Showing 3 of 4 policy matches
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.