The ceiling on VA's no-bid Oracle EHR contract reportedly increased by approximately $17 billion. Oracle executives did not appear at a September 2 congressional hearing, the House Veterans' Affairs Committee voted 19–0 to subpoena them, and senators have demanded supporting documents by October 23. A contract ceiling is not money already spent, but an increase of this scale demands a complete public accounting.
Oracle has spent years telling the federal government that it can help deliver a modern electronic health record worthy of America's Veterans.
Now that the ceiling on its Department of Veterans Affairs contract has increased from approximately $10 billion to $27 billion, Oracle owes Veterans something more valuable than another corporate promise:
The truth.
The increase does not necessarily mean every dollar will ultimately be paid to Oracle, and it is separate from the program's total lifecycle cost. But it represents an extraordinary expansion of the government's potential financial commitment to a project already defined by delays, dissatisfied users, disrupted operations, unresolved safety concerns, and repeated demands for stronger oversight.
When the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs held an oversight hearing on September 2, lawmakers wanted to know what caused the additional $17 billion.
Oracle did not appear.
The House committee then voted unanimously to subpoena Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and Chief Executive Officer Mike Sicilia. That vote should embarrass every executive associated with this contract.
Oracle wants to remain at the center of one of the most expensive and consequential health-information projects in federal history. Its leaders should therefore be willing to sit before Congress, under oath, and explain precisely what taxpayers are being asked to purchase.
A promise Oracle must now explain
In 2022, Sicilia told the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee that Oracle intended to deliver an electronic health record that exceeded expectations without exceeding the contracted cost. Senators say he also pledged that Oracle would correct problems at its own expense.
The contract ceiling is now approximately $27 billion.
Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Ranking Member Richard Blumenthal and six other committee members have demanded that Oracle explain what changed. Their letter asks for the analyses supporting the increase, an itemization of the cited “unanticipated complexities,” Oracle's lifecycle-cost projections, records of its communications with VA, and a reconciliation of the new contract terms with Sicilia's earlier commitment.
That is not political theater. It is basic contract accountability.
A company cannot make cost-control assurances when seeking continued government confidence and then disappear when Congress asks why the potential price has nearly tripled.
If Oracle believes the increase is justified, it should prove it. If VA requirements changed, Oracle should document those changes. If the original contract underestimated the work, Oracle should explain who underestimated it and why.
If defective performance, incomplete functionality, data-migration problems, outages, medication-ordering issues, or remediation work contributed to the increase, Veterans deserve to know how much of the additional cost is associated with correcting those problems.
The numbers are already damning
The Oracle contract ceiling is only part of the story.
VA officials have estimated that deploying the system through 2031 could cost approximately $37 billion, followed by roughly $11 billion in sustainment costs, producing a total near $48 billion. Senators noted that this was not an independent assessment.
A 2022 estimate by the Institute for Defense Analyses placed the program's lifecycle cost at $49.8 billion—$32.7 billion for implementation and $17.1 billion for sustainment.
The Government Accountability Office has repeatedly warned that VA still needs a reliable, updated, independent lifecycle-cost estimate and an integrated master schedule.
Congress is therefore being asked to oversee a program with tens of billions of dollars at stake while the government still lacks the fundamental cost and scheduling information needed to judge whether the project is affordable, achievable, or competently managed.
That is not modernization. That is financial fog.
The product must work for the people using it
Oracle and VA can point to configuration changes, technical improvements, and performance statistics. Those improvements should be recognized where they are real.
But they do not erase the larger record.
GAO reported that, as of February 2025, approximately 1,800 configuration-change requests remained unresolved. It also reported that 75 percent of surveyed users disagreed or strongly disagreed that the system enabled them to be as efficient as possible.
As of August 2026, 14 of GAO's 18 recommendations had not been fully implemented, including 12 priority recommendations addressing cost estimation, scheduling, program management, operational testing, user satisfaction, and other risks.
An electronic health record sits at the center of patient care. It affects medication orders, laboratory results, referrals, appointments, clinical notes, pharmacy operations, communication among providers, and the ability to reconstruct a Veteran's medical history accurately.
When an EHR slows clinicians, hides information, disrupts scheduling, or introduces medication and data-migration risks, it is not merely inconvenient software. It becomes a patient-safety problem.
Veterans are not test data. VA clinicians are not unpaid Oracle software debuggers. Taxpayers should not finance an endless cycle in which problems generate remediation work, remediation work generates contract growth, and contract growth arrives without a transparent public accounting.
Oracle cannot hide behind VA
VA bears enormous responsibility for this program. The department selected the platform, negotiated the contract, established requirements, managed deployment decisions, approved modifications, and repeatedly failed to produce the complete cost and schedule information Congress requested.
But VA's failures do not excuse Oracle.
Oracle acquired Cerner in 2022 and assumed responsibility for a federal contract affecting the healthcare of millions of Veterans. It has accepted the revenue, access, prestige, and opportunity associated with that relationship.
It must also accept the scrutiny.
Oracle cannot market itself as a trusted global technology leader while treating congressional oversight as optional. It cannot celebrate government partnerships in press releases and then avoid the hearing room when lawmakers ask why the ceiling on this contract increased by $17 billion.
If Oracle wants the public's money, Oracle must face the public's representatives.
Congress should demand the full record
Before another major expansion of this program, Congress should require Oracle and VA to disclose:
- A complete itemization of the increase from approximately $10 billion to $27 billion.
- Every material assumption used to calculate the new contract ceiling.
- Oracle's internal projections for deployment and sustainment through 2031.
- The amounts allocated to new functionality, ordinary deployment, remediation, data migration, cybersecurity, training, maintenance, and correction of deficiencies.
- All communications surrounding the ceiling increase and an explanation of why Congress reportedly learned about it through press coverage rather than direct notification.
- A site-by-site accounting of outages, performance failures, medication-ordering problems, scheduling problems, data-migration defects, safety events, and unresolved technical issues.
- A detailed explanation of Oracle's responsibility for addressing the outstanding GAO recommendations.
- Measurable performance standards with enforceable financial consequences when Oracle fails to meet them.
- An updated independent lifecycle-cost estimate and integrated master schedule covering the entire program.
- A clear explanation of what taxpayers receive for every additional billion dollars.
Congress should also prohibit VA from treating a higher contract ceiling as automatic permission to spend. Every major obligation should be tied to independently verified milestones, demonstrated clinical readiness, system reliability, user satisfaction, patient-safety performance, and transparent reporting.
Veterans deserve better than corporate silence
The United States needs a modern, interoperable health record capable of supporting Veterans as they move between VA, the Department of Defense, community providers, specialists, pharmacies, and other care settings.
That mission is too important to abandon. It is also too important to entrust to blank checks, vague estimates, private negotiations, and executives who fail to appear when Congress calls.
Oracle may ultimately have defensible explanations for the increased contract ceiling. If so, Larry Ellison and Mike Sicilia should present those explanations publicly, provide the underlying documents, answer questions under oath, and accept responsibility for the promises their company made.
Until then, Congress should not give Oracle the benefit of the doubt. It should give Oracle a deadline.
Then it should demand the documents, enforce the subpoenas, follow the money, and refuse to authorize another dollar that cannot be connected to a measurable improvement in Veterans' care.
Because this is not Oracle's money. It is not VA leadership's money. It belongs to the American public—and the system exists to serve Veterans, not the contractor.
Oracle wanted the contract. Now Oracle must answer for it.