Fiscal Year 2025 Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Authorization Act

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Bill ID: 119/s/2393
Last Updated: August 3, 2026

Sponsored by

Sen. Moran, Jerry [R-KS]

ID: M000934

Follow the money

The bill

Fiscal Year 2025 Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Authorization Act

S. 2393, 119th Congress — read as touching Hospitals & Health Systems.

The sponsor

Sen. Moran, Jerry [R-KS]

Every bill has someone who introduced it. That name is where the paper trail starts.

The money

$81,200 raised

20 itemised contributions to this sponsor, pulled from FEC filings.

The alignment

85% match to Project 2025

This bill's text tracks the "Department of Veterans Affairs" section, p. 676-678 of the Mandate for Leadership.

Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law

Track this bill's progress through the legislative process

Latest Action

Became Public Law No: 119-97.

June 8, 2026

Introduced

Committee Review

Floor Action

Passed Senate

House Review

Passed Congress

Presidential Action

Became Law

📍 Current Status

This bill has become 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, courtesy of the 119th Congress. Let's dissect this farce, shall we?

The "Fiscal Year 2025 Veterans Affairs Major Medical Facility Authorization Act" - what a mouthful of bureaucratic nonsense. It sounds like a legitimate attempt to support our nation's veterans, but don't be fooled. This bill is a symptom of a deeper disease: pork-barrel politics and crony capitalism.

The total funding amount for this project? A whopping $1,762,668,000. Because what's a few billion dollars between friends, right? The Department of Veterans Affairs gets to build a shiny new medical facility in St. Louis, Missouri, complete with a bed tower, clinical building expansion, and parking garages. I'm sure the good people of St. Louis are just thrilled to have their tax dollars spent on this boondoggle.

Notable increases or decreases from previous years? Ha! This is a brand new allocation, because who needs fiscal responsibility when you can just throw money at a problem? The Congressional Record shows that this bill was passed with all the haste and deliberation of a drunken sailor on payday. Considered and passed in a matter of days - what could possibly go wrong?

As for riders or policy provisions attached to funding, I'm sure there are plenty of goodies hidden in the fine print. Perhaps some earmarks for favored contractors or lobbyists? A few million dollars set aside for "administrative costs" that will inevitably find their way into the pockets of well-connected bureaucrats? You can bet your bottom dollar on it.

Fiscal impact and deficit implications? *chuckles* Oh, please. This bill is a drop in the ocean of our national debt, but it's still a drop. The interest payments alone on this project will be enough to fund a small country. But hey, who needs fiscal discipline when you can just kick the can down the road and let future generations deal with the consequences?

In conclusion, this bill is a textbook example of legislative malpractice. It's a cynical attempt to buy votes and curry favor with special interests, all while pretending to support our nation's veterans. I'm sure the politicians involved will be thrilled to take credit for "supporting the troops" while lining their own pockets with campaign contributions. Bravo, Congress. You've managed to make a mockery of the legislative process once again.

Related Topics

Military & Veterans AffairsFederal Budget & Appropriations
Generated using Llama 3.1 70B (Dr. Haus personality)

💰 Campaign Finance Network

Sen. Moran, Jerry [R-KS]

Congress 119 • 2024 Election Cycle

Total Contributions
$81,200
17 donors
PACs
$0
Organizations
$0
Committees
$0
Individuals
$81,200

No PAC contributions found

No organization contributions found

No committee contributions found

1
BORCK, LEON H.
1 transaction
$6,600
2
MANDELBLATT, DANIELLE
1 transaction
$6,600
3
MANDELBLATT, ERIC
1 transaction
$6,600
4
BORCK, JACKIE
2 transactions
$6,600
5
DWYER, JOHN W
2 transactions
$6,600
6
DWYER, NANCY E
2 transactions
$6,600
7
CATZ, SAFRA
1 transaction
$5,000
8
MISSION INDIANS, MORONGO BAND OF
1 transaction
$5,000
9
WILLIS, THOMAS M
1 transaction
$5,000
10
WEILERT, STANLEY R
1 transaction
$3,500
11
THOMAS, ROBERT
1 transaction
$3,300
12
LEPRINO, TERRY L
1 transaction
$3,300
13
POTAWATOMI NATION, PRAIRIE BAND
1 transaction
$3,300
14
BUKOWSKY, BROCK
1 transaction
$3,300
15
OF CREEK INDIANS, POARCH BAND
1 transaction
$3,300
16
BRIGHT, JOHN
1 transaction
$3,300
17
HEMMER, THOMAS
1 transaction
$3,300

Cosponsors & Their Campaign Finance

This bill has 1 cosponsors. Below are their top campaign contributors.

Sen. Blumenthal, Richard [D-CT]

ID: B001277

Top Contributors

20

1
OLSON, LYNDON
NOT EMPLOYED • NOT EMPLOYED
IndividualWACO, TX
$3,300
Dec 20, 2024
2
ALIX, JAY
ALIX PARTNERS • FOUNDER
IndividualBIRMINGHAM, MI
$3,300
Oct 2, 2023
3
KIM, CHRISTINE M.
BBB LLC • ATTORNEY
IndividualNEW YORK, NY
$3,300
Oct 31, 2023
4
ALIX, JAY
ALIX PARTNERS • FOUNDER
IndividualBIRMINGHAM, MI
$3,300
Apr 15, 2024
5
ROURE, RITA
PAGNY - LINCOLN HOSPITAL • PHYSICIAN
IndividualGREENWICH, CT
$3,300
Apr 10, 2024
6
ROURE, RITA
PAGNY - LINCOLN HOSPITAL • PHYSICIAN
IndividualGREENWICH, CT
$3,300
Apr 10, 2024
7
CHAVEZ, TOM
KRUX INC. • CEO
IndividualSAN FRANCISCO, CA
$3,300
Jul 13, 2024
8
CHAVEZ, TOM
KRUX INC. • CEO
IndividualSAN FRANCISCO, CA
$3,300
Jul 13, 2024
9
JONES, JERRY C.
LIVERAMP INC. • EXECUTIVE
IndividualLITTLE ROCK, AR
$3,300
Sep 19, 2024
10
NESSEL, ARIEL
NESSEL DEVELOPMENT • OWNER
IndividualROSS, CA
$3,300
Jul 12, 2024

Donor Network - Sen. Moran, Jerry [R-KS]

PACs
Organizations
Individuals
Politicians

Hub layout: Politicians in center, donors arranged by type in rings around them.

Loading...

Showing 46 nodes and 46 connections

Total contributions: $46

Top Donors - Sen. Moran, Jerry [R-KS]

Showing top 17 donors by contribution amount

17 Individuals

Industry Impact

Which industries are materially affected by specific provisions in this bill. 2 helped.

  • Section 2 authorizes a major medical facility project for the Department of Veterans Affairs in St. Louis, Missouri, including construction of a new bed tower, clinical building expansion, consolidated administrative building and warehouse, utility plant, and parking garages, with an appropriation of $1,762,668,000. This constitutes a clear benefit (subsidy/contract) to hospitals and health systems involved in the project.

  • Section 2 authorizes construction of a new bed tower, clinical building expansion, consolidated administrative building and warehouse, utility plant, and parking garages for a VA medical facility in St. Louis, Missouri, with funding up to $1,762,668,000. This provides a clear benefit (contract/subsidy) to construction and engineering firms.

Project 2025 Policy Matches

This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document.AI-enhanced analysis provides detailed alignment ratings.

Department of Veterans Affairs

Strong
Vector: 66%
Pages: 676-678AI Enhanced

AI Analysis:

"The bill funds construction to modernize a VA medical center, directly addressing the aging infrastructure highlighted in Project 2025 and supporting veteran healthcare capacity amid shifting demographics, which aligns with the policy's focus on VA facility upgrades and demographic adaptation."

Key themes:VA infrastructurefacility modernizationveteran healthcare capacityaging medical centersdemographic shift

— 643 — Department of Veterans Affairs with a growth in same-day surgical procedures and outpatient care, so has the VA, and in 2018 Congress added access to private-sector urgent care outlets as one of the VA’s health care benefits. Today, the VA operates 172 inpatient VA Medical Centers (VAMCs), which are an average of 60 years old, and 1,113 Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs), which are newer facilities designed to meet the needs of veterans closer to home. The VA also manages a Community Care Network (CCN) through contracts with Optum and TriWest, third-party health care administrators responsible for build- ing and maintaining a robust population of community providers to meet the needs of veterans referred for care outside of the VA system. Currently, approximately 6.4 million veterans out of 18 million nationally (and out of the 9.1 million who are enrolled) use the VA for health care; the remainder use employer-sponsored plans, Tricare, Medicare, and Medicaid. The disability benefits system evolved significantly in the years between the Cold War era and the global war on terrorism, a period when the VA enrolled large numbers of veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam who were seeking disability benefits and health care. Disability compensation is the largest VA benefit, but there also are dozens of others, the next largest of which are the GI Bill and the Home Loan Guaranty. These benefits are administered through 56 Regional Benefits Offices (RBOs) and hundreds of satellite sites around the country. The Agent Orange Act of 19914 significantly expanded the scope of disability ben- efits for those who had deployed to Vietnam, and the cost of those benefits began to increase dramatically as the Vietnam generation of veterans aged and began to expe- rience adverse health conditions, some of which were presumed to have been caused by defoliant chemicals used in Southeast Asia. In 2016 and 2017, a burdensome backlog of appeals of denied disability claims from multiple wartime generations—a backlog numbering in the hundreds of thousands—led to a joint effort by the VA, Vet- eran Service Organizations (VSOs), and Congress to pass legislation that streamlined appeal processes. Implemented in 2017, this historic “good governance” success has helped the VA to reduce the number of these appeals dramatically. The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 20225 addressed adverse health outcomes presumed to be the result of veterans’ exposure to airborne toxins during the global war on terrorism and further expanded disability benefits to the most recent gen- eration of veterans. These ambitious authorities, like the 1991 authorities, have the potential to overwhelm the VA’s ability to process new disability claims and adjudicate appeals. Currently, the VA is seeking to hire large numbers of personnel to process these claims while exploring the use of an automated process to accel- erate claims reviews and decisions. The ever-present lag in the hiring and training of new employees could result in major problems with the timely adjudication of benefits well into the next Administration in 2025. — 644 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise In sum, the VA for the foreseeable future will experience significant fiscal, human capital, and infrastructure crosswinds and risks. Budgets are at historic highs, and with a workforce now above 400,000, the VA is contending with a lack of new veteran enrollees to offset the declining population of older veterans. Recruitment of medical and benefits personnel has become more challenging. Veterans are migrating from the northern states to the southern and western states for retirement and employment. Meanwhile, VA information technol- ogy (IT) is struggling to keep pace with the evolution of patient care and record keeping. Consequently, VA leaders in the next Administration must be wise and courageous political strategists, experienced managers to run day-to-day oper- ations more effectively, innovators to address the changing veteran landscape, and agile “fixers” to mitigate and repair systemic problems created or ignored by the present leadership team. VETERANS HEALTH ADMINISTRATION (VHA) Needed Reforms l Rescind all departmental clinical policy directives that are contrary to principles of conservative governance starting with abortion services and gender reassignment surgery. Neither aligns with service-connected conditions that would warrant VA’s providing this type of clinical care, and both follow the Left’s pernicious trend of abusing the role of government to further its own agenda. l Focus on the effects of shifting veteran demographics. At least during the next decade, the VA will experience a significant generational shift in its overall patient population. Of the approximately 18 million veterans alive today, roughly 9.1 million are enrolled for VA health care, and 6.4 million of these enrollees use VA health care consistently. These 6.4 million veterans are split almost evenly between those who are over age 65 and those who are under age 65, but the share of VA’s health care dollars is spent predominantly in the over-65 cohort. That share increases significantly as veterans live longer and use the VHA system at a higher rate. VHA enrollments of new users are increasingly at risk of being exceeded by the deaths of current enrollees, primarily because significant numbers of the Vietnam generation are reaching their life expectancy. The generational transition from Vietnam-era veterans to post-9/11 veterans will take several years to complete. The ongoing demographic transition is a catalyst for needed assessments of how the VA can improve the delivery of care to a numerically declining and differently dispersed national population

Department of Veterans Affairs

Strong
Vector: 64%
Pages: 676-678AI Enhanced

AI Analysis:

"The bill funds construction and expansion of VA medical facilities in St. Louis, directly addressing the need to modernize aging VAMCs and increase inpatient/outpatient capacity highlighted in the Project 2025 VA policy section."

Key themes:VA infrastructurefacility modernizationinpatient capacityoutpatient careveterans health

— 643 — Department of Veterans Affairs with a growth in same-day surgical procedures and outpatient care, so has the VA, and in 2018 Congress added access to private-sector urgent care outlets as one of the VA’s health care benefits. Today, the VA operates 172 inpatient VA Medical Centers (VAMCs), which are an average of 60 years old, and 1,113 Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs), which are newer facilities designed to meet the needs of veterans closer to home. The VA also manages a Community Care Network (CCN) through contracts with Optum and TriWest, third-party health care administrators responsible for build- ing and maintaining a robust population of community providers to meet the needs of veterans referred for care outside of the VA system. Currently, approximately 6.4 million veterans out of 18 million nationally (and out of the 9.1 million who are enrolled) use the VA for health care; the remainder use employer-sponsored plans, Tricare, Medicare, and Medicaid. The disability benefits system evolved significantly in the years between the Cold War era and the global war on terrorism, a period when the VA enrolled large numbers of veterans from World War II, Korea, and Vietnam who were seeking disability benefits and health care. Disability compensation is the largest VA benefit, but there also are dozens of others, the next largest of which are the GI Bill and the Home Loan Guaranty. These benefits are administered through 56 Regional Benefits Offices (RBOs) and hundreds of satellite sites around the country. The Agent Orange Act of 19914 significantly expanded the scope of disability ben- efits for those who had deployed to Vietnam, and the cost of those benefits began to increase dramatically as the Vietnam generation of veterans aged and began to expe- rience adverse health conditions, some of which were presumed to have been caused by defoliant chemicals used in Southeast Asia. In 2016 and 2017, a burdensome backlog of appeals of denied disability claims from multiple wartime generations—a backlog numbering in the hundreds of thousands—led to a joint effort by the VA, Vet- eran Service Organizations (VSOs), and Congress to pass legislation that streamlined appeal processes. Implemented in 2017, this historic “good governance” success has helped the VA to reduce the number of these appeals dramatically. The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 20225 addressed adverse health outcomes presumed to be the result of veterans’ exposure to airborne toxins during the global war on terrorism and further expanded disability benefits to the most recent gen- eration of veterans. These ambitious authorities, like the 1991 authorities, have the potential to overwhelm the VA’s ability to process new disability claims and adjudicate appeals. Currently, the VA is seeking to hire large numbers of personnel to process these claims while exploring the use of an automated process to accel- erate claims reviews and decisions. The ever-present lag in the hiring and training of new employees could result in major problems with the timely adjudication of benefits well into the next Administration in 2025.

Department of Veterans Affairs

Moderate
Vector: 64%
Pages: 679-681AI Enhanced

AI Analysis:

"The bill funds construction and modernization of a VA medical facility, directly addressing the Project 2025 concern about aging VHA infrastructure and the need to assess and remedy facility misalignment, though it does not touch on the policy’s education, caregiver, innovation office, reporting, or audit recommendations."

Key themes:VA infrastructure modernizationaging facilitiesfacility investment

— 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 a hybrid approach: initial candidates are found using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text, then an AI model (Llama 3.1 70B) provides detailed alignment ratings and analysis. Ratings range from 1 (minimal alignment) to 5 (very strong alignment). This analysis does not imply direct causation or intent.

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