Louisville's new VA hospital: $418.8 million on paper in 2007, more than $1.1 billion now, and at least 13 years behind. Veterans wait.

Friends, Proverbs warns that plans fail for lack of counsel. The VA's own inspector general has just shown us what that looks like. In a review dated Sept. 24, the VA Office of Inspector General found that the new VA medical center in Louisville, Kentucky, is at least 13 years behind its initial plan and isn't expected to be finished until November 2027. Its projected cost has grown from a 2007 draft estimate of $418.8 million to more than $1.1 billion. The watchdog traced the delays and cost growth to "ineffective planning, repeated scope changes, and failure to follow required acquisition and capital programming processes." VA did not give Congress a complete cost estimate until fiscal 2016, never submitted a business case to the Office of Management and Budget, and understated total costs by nearly $160 million, leaving out obligations and changes required before the building can open. Because VA could not show it followed OMB's business case rules, the inspector general reported the more than $1 billion authorized for the project as a questioned cost. VA concurred with all seven recommendations. This project began in 2007 and has outlasted administrations of both parties, so nobody gets to point across the aisle. Our veterans kept their promise to this country. A hospital more than a decade late is a promise broken in slow motion. Friends, finish it, fix the process, and plan the next one before the first shovel turns.