The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee voted to subpoena Oracle Health executives this week after a hearing on the VA‘s massive EHR project turned contentious.
Lawmakers from both parties pushed back on a recent increase to the contract’s cost ceiling. This price hike — which is almost triple the amount lawmakers had originally signed off on — came despite Oracle telling Congress four years ago that the company wouldn’t increase the contract’s price tag.
When the VA initially signed its EHR modernization contract with Cerner in 2018, it cost $10 billion. Oracle acquired Cerner in 2022 for $28.3 billion, inheriting the VA contract along with it.
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Shortly after Oracle completed its acquisition, the VA paused the rollout to renegotiate the deal, citing unanticipated complexity” in the project. That renegotiation added stronger performance metrics and financial penalties, but it didn’t change the contract’s underlying price. That held until this year, when the VA modified the contract again — this time raising the ceiling to $27 billion total and extending the timeline to 2031.
The increase is especially notable given what Oracle told Congress back in 2022. Mike Sicilia — Oracle’s now-CEO, who was serving as an executive vice president at the time — testified that the company would absorb any costs beyond the original $10 billion ceiling.
Lawmakers said they didn’t hear about this year’s price hike from Oracle or the VA — they learned about it through news coverage. This lack of disclosure, layered on top of a broken cost promise, is what turned Wednesday’s hearing combative, with members of the committee characterizing the increase as unreasonable and corrupt.
Oracle had been invited to testify but pulled out, citing timing constraints, which further bothered the committee. It ultimately voted 19-0 to subpoena Sicilia, along with Oracle Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison, to explain the discrepancy in person.
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“When the company responsible for a taxpayer-funded contract that could grow from $10 billion to roughly $27 billion refuses to sit before Congress and answer questions, this committee cannot fully do its job,” said Representative Maxine Dexter (D-Oregon). “Veterans deserve a health records system that works, and taxpayers deserve to know their money is being spent responsibly. A private, closed-door roundtable cannot replace public congressional oversight. Oracle’s leaders must appear before this committee and answer for this contract.”
It’s not yet clear when Ellison and Sicilia will appear before the committee, or whether Oracle will comply with the subpoena at all.
In the meantime, the VA’s EHR rollout continues at a fraction of its planned sites, with more than 160 medical centers still awaiting deployment before the contract’s 2031 end date.
Photo: MikeyLPT, Getty Images