The Department of Health and Human Services’ layoff of 10,000 workers at the agencies under its umbrella deals a severe blow to public health and healthcare access for the nation’s most vulnerable communities.
HHS announced the layoffs April 1, including 3,500 jobs at the Food and Drug Administration, 2,400 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as 300 jobs at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr says he plans to reduce staffing at the various agencies by 25%, approximately 20,000 jobs.
HHS employees make up less than 1% of the department’s overall budget: most of its coffers go out in direct services.
Health Is a Right for All
“Health should not be a privilege for some, but a right for all,” said Dr. Avenel Joseph, vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “Yet every day, a devastating number of people are struggling to keep their families healthy, cared for and fed due to really longstanding barriers and inequities.”
“HHS is really the single most important federal agency for improving Americans health and well-being. It touches the life of nearly every person in the country,” said Joseph in an interview with American Community Media. RWJF is the US’s largest philanthropic organization focused on health and healthcare access equity.
“HHS monitors the safety of our nation’s food supply and medical treatments. It monitors disease prevention and promotes public health through agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also supports childhood education, mental health, and treatment for substance use and disability inclusion,” said Joseph.
“HHS is a large umbrella agency because it houses so many different functions. There are lots of ways that we can promote efficiency. But the examples that we are seeing are these really indiscriminate layoffs of federal employees at HHS,” she said.
Low-Income People Most Impacted
Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program provide health insurance to 150 million low-income people and seniors. HHS also oversees the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — through which 44 million Americans receive low-cost health insurance coverage.
“Those who already face some of the greatest barriers to health are going to be the most impacted. These include people who live in lower income communities that are already disproportionately uninsured or underinsured, rural communities that already lack access to hospitals and health centers and providers, people who are disabled, who have chronic illnesses, and many others who have a higher risk of illness,” said Joseph.
“So the overall impact of the staffing and funding cuts only means that health crises will become even more likely. People will have a harder time keeping themselves and their families healthy and safe. They’ll have a harder time securing health insurance coverage,” she said.
Diminished Capacity to Manage Disease Outbreaks
The US is currently facing a measles outbreak in several states. It is also facing down the threat of avian flu, which has infected at least 70 people in the US thus far. Covid-19 continues to persist, along with the seasonal Respiratory Syncytial Virus — RSV — and the common flu.
“Many communities will be more prone to potentially fatal disease outbreaks like COVID, the measles and the bird flu because we’re not tracking it, because we don’t have staff in place that are doing the sort of scenario planning and advanced preventative planning that we need for these sorts of outbreaks,” said Joseph. “Research into promising new treatments, potential cures for things like cancer, other diseases, emerging conditions could all grind to a halt because there are significant funding cuts that are happening to the National Institutes of Health.”
Cuts in Research Funding
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya announced on his 1st day in office April 1 that he plans to slash 1,000 jobs at the agency. The NIH falls under the HHS umbrella. With a $48 billion annual budget, the NIH is the world’s largest funder for biomedical research. The Trump Administration announced in March that it had cut hundreds of NIH grants, including funding for Covid vaccine research, HIV, and cancer research. About 1,000 grants are expected to be cut this year.
“NIH is the bedrock of medical and public health research and innovation in the United States and is really a leader in the world when it comes to advancing health research and innovation. Its vast expertise is responsible for putting America on the cutting edge of improving health and saving lives,” said Joseph. “The impact of these cuts will reverberate for years to come.”
Undermining Decades of Research
”Scientists who are working on uncovering innovations, it’s not like you start it today and you have the results of it next month. These are often years and years, sometimes decades, of building the type of research and data and evidence and iteration on the scientific process that gets us to an outcome that’s beneficial, either improving treatments, improving device delivery, reducing disease or morbidity of other kinds.”
“And so when you cut it today, you’re cutting off decades you know, decades of back research. And it’s not like you can just start it back and it starts from that point in which you left it. It’s going to take then years, potentially decades, building that back up again. Communities across the country who will unfortunately pay the price of this,” said Joseph.
“I am deeply concerned personally that these cuts were going to result in more illness and less prevention,” she said.
Lawsuit
The American Public Health Association, along with United Auto Workers, which represents some research scientists, and several scholars represented by the American Civil Liberties Union collectively filed a lawsuit April 2, stating that the NIH grant cancellations are “ideologically driven,” and therefore illegal.
Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of RWJF issued a statement April 1. “This is not a so-called restructuring. These are reckless, thoughtless cuts that will only make American communities less healthy and less safe. They represent an abdication of the department’s essential responsibility to promote and protect health.”
“It is clear that political leaders in this administration are neither committed to nor serious about improving everyday people’s lives and health,” wrote Besser.
‘Five-Alarm Fire’
Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, also issued a statement. “The mass firings from HHS are yet another five-alarm fire caused by President Trump that threatens to torch the health system we all rely on. This slash-and-burn approach to our key health care agencies seemingly makes no sense unless the President’s goal is to destroy our nation’s health care infrastructure and the ability of families and seniors to access life-saving health care.”
Families USA, along with several health advocacy organizations, is calling on the Trump Administration to reverse the HHS layoffs.
