WASHINGTON, DC – Whether it’s food safety, preventing disease outbreaks, or ensuring medicine is effective, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is responsible for protecting Americans’ health and delivering essential health and social services.  Hollowing it out will not better protect Americans or deliver critical health care services.

Today, after President Trump’s HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced plans to cut the size of the department by 20,000 employees, shrinking the public health workforce by nearly a quarter, U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) called the move short-sighted and says it will needlessly jeopardize public health.

“This an arbitrary, short-sighted plan that will make America sicker, less healthy, and more contagious.  Don’t be surprised in the weeks ahead when Congressional Republicans piggyback off of this and really go after Medicaid and Medicare.  They’re going to take the so-called ‘savings’ from these cuts to give a bigger tax windfall to billionaires at the expense of the health and safety of American patients and communities.  The average taxpayer is going to get fewer health services and public benefits and there will be a heavier tax burden and health burden on state and local communities,” said Senator Reed.  “I support efficiency and targeted efforts to improve the federal government, but that is not what’s happening here.  Instead, the Trump Administration is irrationally demolishing public health infrastructure.  We must wisely invest every dollar of health care spending, not just set arbitrary quotas that will lead to poorer health outcomes for many.”

Trump’s health cuts will impact agencies like the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which responds to infectious disease outbreaks; the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which ensures the safety and effectiveness of medicines and approves new drugs; the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which conducts life-saving research into chronic diseases; and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), which helps states combat the addiction and opioid crisis; as well as smaller agencies that help Americans with health insurance and work closely with communities nationwide to ensure child care, hospitals, and nursing homes are safe, strengthen rural health care, and more.

Overall, the cuts will shrink HHS’s full-time health workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 when combined with its earlier layoffs. 

These cuts come at the same time the Trump Administration abruptly cut off and clawed back billions in federal funding to state and local public health departments, and canceled critical research of infectious diseases.