The GOP “Bloodbath” Continues at HHS With 20,000 Critical Jobs Lost
Washington, D.C. – Today, HHS Secretary RFK Jr. announced plans to dismantle critical health care services for the American people by gutting his own department. The latest plan includes firing 10,000 employees who have been responding to infectious disease outbreaks, approving new life-saving drugs, administering critical programs like Medicare and Medicaid, and more. This comes after 10,000 employees have already left HHS due to DOGE efforts to slash the federal workforce to the bone and cut the programs the American people rely on.
This latest move is all part of the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to gut federal funding for health care. The Trump administration has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants for universities and state agencies around the country studying health issues over the past few weeks. Read more about the “bloodbath” here.
Republicans are also working to slash nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid and raise costs on hard-working families by ending cost-saving tax credits. As a result, millions of Americans will be at risk of losing their health care coverage. Protect Our Care recently released a report detailing all the GOP attacks on health care.
Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach issued a statement:
“Donald Trump continues to gut vital health programs across the country. These drastic cuts will undermine disease prevention, food inspection, and drug safety. Lifesaving research to develop treatments and cures for diseases will be eliminated. America will be vulnerable to the next big health threat, and more Americans will get sick, and more will die. There is no telling just how damaging these cuts will be, but they will be felt across the country.”
BACKGROUND
Wall Street Journal: RFK Jr. Plans 10,000 Job Cuts in Major Restructuring of Health Department.
- “Kennedy is set to announce Thursday the planned changes, which include axing 10,000 full-time employees spread across departments tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more.”
- “The worker cuts are in addition to roughly 10,000 employees who opted to leave the department since President Trump took office, through voluntary separation offers, according to the documents. The voluntary departures and the plan, if fully implemented, would result in the department shedding about one-quarter of its workforce, shrinking to 62,000 federal health workers. It will also lose five of its 10 regional offices.”
New York Times: Trump Administration Abruptly Cuts Billions From State Health Services.
- “The Department of Health and Human Services has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues. The cuts are likely to further hamstring state health departments, which are already underfunded and struggling with competing demands from chronic diseases, resurgent infections like syphilis and emerging threats like bird flu. State health departments began receiving notices on Monday evening that the funds, which were allocated during the Covid-19 pandemic, were being terminated, effective immediately.”