A stark future awaits American health care if the Veterans Affairs (VA) system and Cerner is allowed to go forward with announced plans to replace the VA's successful public domain laboratory software, in need of update, with a proprietary one. The VA would give large amounts of cash that would greatly assist a single proprietary company in dominating EHR software in both the public and private sector. A free, thriving EHR ecosystem will be destroyed and replaced with a monopoly or cartel at great expense in which the quality, privacy and security of such software is a trade secret, un-examined and un-examinable. If this is allowed, it could lead to Americans essentially renting their own medical data back from the Cerners of the world at great expense.