Developments in the sad, embarrassing case of the Aurora Veterans Affairs Hospital have filled these pages for well over a year. This month marks the anniversary of the VA’s admission that something went horribly wrong, pushing construction costs more than $1 billion over budget. The hospital will even cost more to build than the world’s tallest building.

For a hospital scheduled for completion in 2014 at a cost of $328 million, you’d think the VA would be prepared to explain itself to veterans waiting for care and taxpayers paying the ever-growing bills. Instead, the department has avoided releasing the results of investigations into what went wrong. VA Secretary Bob McDonald recently downplayed concerns about the project, but a bipartisan group of Colorado lawmakers disagreed. One of them, Rep. Mike Coffman, requested last week that the VA share with the public the findings from its investigations.

While we can only hope the VA will eventually release these reports, the public has already learned quite a bit about why this happened. The investigation conducted in these pages suggests mismanagement and a lack of discipline. “Everything that could have gone wrong did,” said one GAO analyst. VA construction officials constantly changed design plans and spent lavishly on non-essentials, such as three parking complexes that cost $180 million altogether.

What’s more troubling is that the officials responsible for overseeing the project and keeping costs under control had limited accountability. One VA official claimed under oath in 2014 that the project was within its budget and on schedule, yet the writing was on the wall. Internal memos from VA whistleblowers warned as far back as 2011 that this project and others like it were in danger of blowing up their budgets. One wrote: “Without a change in strategy, my estimate would be around half a billion dollars in total cost overrun. That’s how risky this type of contract is.”

This past March, the VA announced it didn’t plan to punish anyone. In fact, not long after the news broke last year that the Aurora hospital was over budget, the VA construction chief retired with full benefits, after collecting $63,777 in bonuses from 2009 to 2013.

But the VA’s issues go far beyond the Aurora hospital. As of June 1, wait times for nearly 20 percent of appointments scheduled with the VA in the Denver area were over 30 days. Veterans also faced extensive waits due to contaminated equipment that shut down operating rooms. And in San Luis Valley, the VA facility went over five months without a doctor, forcing some vets to drive nearly 500 miles to see a physician.

This is not how veterans’ care should function, and Colorado’s congressional leaders are right to condemn it.

They now have an opportunity to improve the functioning of this critical veterans’ institution. A draft legislative proposal likely to reach Congress, known as the Caring for Our Heroes in the 21st Century Act, could revamp the VA and restore a sense of accountability. When something goes wrong, as it did with the Aurora hospital, the VA would not only be required to answer for it, but also empowered to correct it.

The act would reform the VA, changing its health care services to a government-chartered non-profit solely accountable to its patients. It would allow veterans to use their healthcare benefits wherever works best for them, regardless whether that’s at a VA facility or a private doctor.

Veterans can use their GI Bill at any university in the country. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to choose where to receive their healthcare benefits? Veterans waiting for the Aurora hospital’s completion deserve these alternatives.

Congress must also continue acting as a watchdog. The VA must be weaned out of its tendency to mismanage construction projects like the one in Aurora. As with the worst of government bureaucracy, if left without supervision, the VA will find ways to waste as much taxpayer money as possible. That should never be permissible – especially when it puts veterans’ lives and well-being on the line.