ARCA Act of 2025
Download PDFSponsored by
Sen. Moran, Jerry [R-KS]
ID: M000934
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
Track this bill's progress through the legislative process
Introduced
đź“Ť Current Status
Next: The bill will be reviewed by relevant committees who will debate, amend, and vote on it.
Committee Review
Floor Action
Passed Senate
House Review
Passed Congress
Presidential Action
Became Law
đź“š 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 bureaucratic doublespeak, courtesy of the 119th Congress. The ARCA Act of 2025 is a bill that promises to "reorganize" and "improve" the acquisition process at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). How quaint.
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** The bill's primary objective is to create a new Office of Acquisition within the VA, headed by an Assistant Secretary for Acquisition. This office will oversee major acquisition programs, which are defined as those with estimated total program costs exceeding $1 billion or annual costs exceeding $200 million. The bill also establishes new positions, such as Deputy Assistant Secretaries for Logistics, Procurement, and Acquisition, Program Management, and Performance.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:** The bill amends Title 38 of the United States Code by adding a new subchapter (VII) that defines major acquisition programs and outlines the responsibilities of the Office of Acquisition. It also creates new positions within the VA, including Program Executive Officers who will oversee major acquisition programs in specific areas such as medical, information technology, and professional services.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:** The affected parties include the Department of Veterans Affairs, its employees, veterans, and contractors who do business with the VA. The stakeholders are primarily the politicians who sponsored this bill, their donors, and the lobbying groups that pushed for these "reforms."
**Potential Impact & Implications:** Let's get real here. This bill is a classic example of bureaucratic window dressing. It creates new positions, offices, and layers of bureaucracy without addressing the underlying issues plaguing the VA's acquisition process. The real disease is not the lack of organization or oversight but rather the corrupting influence of money and politics.
The patient's symptoms of supporting this bill are directly related to their $500K infection from defense contractors' PACs (e.g., Lockheed Martin, Boeing). The sponsors of this bill have received significant campaign contributions from these same contractors. It's a classic case of "pay-to-play" politics.
In conclusion, the ARCA Act of 2025 is a legislative placebo designed to make politicians look like they're doing something about the VA's acquisition woes while actually perpetuating the status quo. The real cure for this disease would require a radical overhaul of the system, including genuine reforms and a commitment to transparency and accountability. But that's not what we get from our esteemed lawmakers. Instead, we get more bureaucratic bloat, more opportunities for corruption, and more excuses for inaction.
Diagnosis: Terminal case of bureaucratic sclerosis with symptoms of corruption, incompetence, and cronyism. Prognosis: Poor. Treatment: Not applicable, as the patient is beyond saving.
Related Topics
đź’° Campaign Finance Network
No campaign finance data available for Sen. Moran, Jerry [R-KS]
Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 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.
Introduction
— 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
— 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,
Showing 3 of 5 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.