Sarah Toce
U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), held a press conference Thursday with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) slamming the Trump administration’s plans to push out roughly 20,000 employees at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and hollow out the Department.
Thursday’s announcement follows weeks of mass firings across HHS, creating chaos at the Department that has prevented it from executing its mission to protect people’s health, and an onslaught of detrimental policies that are halting lifesaving biomedical research and more.
HHS is responsible for protecting Americans’ health and delivering essential health and social services. HHS announced that it plans to cut its workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 (a 25 percent reduction) through a combination of mass firings and buy-outs and remake HHS without thoughtful consideration and partnership with Congress. Among others, Trump, RFK Jr., and Musk plan to cut:
- 3,500 employees at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is charged with protecting Americans’ health by ensuring the safety and effectiveness of medicines, biologics (including vaccines), and medical devices–and regulating food safety, cosmetics, and tobacco products.
- 2,400 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which is charged with protecting the American people from health threats, including infectious diseases.
- 1,200 employees at NIH, the world’s premier medical research agency, which propels biomedical research that produces life-changing and, in many cases, lifesaving treatments and cures. These cuts come as the Trump administration has already systematically decimated ongoing work at NIH to advance new cures and treatments.
- 300 employees at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which has long been understaffed and is charged with helping to ensure over 100 million Americans have access to health insurance by overseeing Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Affordable Care Act marketplaces.
“We are here today to raise the alarm—because the Measles President, and Secretary Kennedy, are trying to turn the Department of Health, into the Department of Disease,” Murray started. “Seriously, do you know what Trump and RFK Jr. are doing about the measles outbreak? They are ripping away funding Congress already provided to respond to the outbreaks; they’re stopping public health work in its tracks, even as this outbreak is threatening to spiral out of control.”
Murray continued, “And now, RFK Jr. announces he is pushing out some 20,000 workers at HHS? That is about as good for the public health as a cough in your face. Looking for new ways to make government more efficient and responsive is important. But Trump and RFK Jr. are doing anything but that! It does not take a genius to understand that pushing out 20,000 workers at a preeminent health agency, choking off funding for cancer research, and eliminating funding that prevents infectious diseases like measles will not make Americans healthier!”
Markey stated, “Corporate greed, hospital and pharmacy closures, health provider burnout, unacceptable wait times and sky-high costs for care: America’s health care crisis is already here. Rather than work to tackle these problems head on, the Trump administration is cutting funding for lifesaving research into Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and cancer, has hawked measles treatment that leaves some patients more sick, plans to gut Medicaid, and is committed to making it harder for patients to get care simply based on who they are, where they come from, and how much money they make.”
Markey added, “Rather than confront the health care crisis head on, Kennedy’s actions will only leave Americans to get sicker while the rich get richer. This evisceration of workers isn’t just a restructuring—it is a catastrophe in the making that will disrupt services, violate federal law, and deny the livelihoods of workers who dedicate themselves every day to protecting public health, all to pay for take breaks for billionaires while American families pay the price of illness and death. We will not let this stand.”
Baldwin said, “With this move, Donald Trump and RFK, Jr. are getting rid of the very people who help ensure our food and drugs are safe, support our loved ones on Medicaid and Medicare, protect communities from infectious diseases like bird flu and measles, and find cures to cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. The Trump Administration is endangering your family’s health to make more room in the budget for their billionaire tax breaks and rig the system for themselves.”
