Bills
| 3.23.22

$50 Million Cash Prize for Inventing an Electronic Health Record System for Vets (H.R. 1590)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 1590?

(Updated July 13, 2017)

This bill would create a contest for an organization or individual who can create the best integrated electronic health record system for veterans. The grand prize? $50 Million in cash up front plus a five-year contract to oversee the implementation worth $25 million per year.

A panel of judges to pick the winner would include:

  • One physician from each of the military departments

  • Two physicians from the Department of Veteran Affairs

  • Two representatives from the Veterans Benefits Administration

American companies of any size, U.S. citizens, and immigrants who have been granted permanent residence in the U.S. are all eligible to compete. Federal employees, however, can't play.  In the meantime, there are few details about the requirements of the system the government would like to see invented. 

Argument in favor

Veterans deserve to collect their benefits in a timely manner and outsourcing for private sector talent to create a better health record system is just the first step.

Argument opposed

The government already spent $1 billion trying to create the same system and failed. This contest lacks specifics on what the government wants developed.

Impact

Veterans, Veterans’ Families, the Department of Defense (the DoD), the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) .

Cost of H.R. 1590

CBO does not have an estimate cost at this time, however, the prize adds up to $175 million total ($50 million up front and $25 million a year for the five-year contract)

Additional Info

In Depth: The Federal Government has tried over the years to improve their health record system for vets, but has made little progress. This bill's idea is to outsource the work to a private entity, to save money and create a more high quality system than the current process.

As it is now, vets need the DoD to provide the VA documents of their service in order to make disability claims. Due to the high number of requests and no system for the two departments to communicate, most vets end up waiting in line for a long time for the DoD to produce records. In some of the worst cases it can take up to 4 months. Ultimately the hope that this integrated system could allow the Department of Defense and the Department of Veteran Affairs to share documents without hassle.