Healthcare

HHS has lost 20,000 workers. The ones who remain cannot do their jobs.

In March 2025, Kennedy ordered 10,000 layoffs across HHS on top of 10,000 employees who had already left through early retirements, buyouts, and voluntary departures. The cuts hit every major health agency:

Agency	Jobs cut	What they do
FDA	3,500	Approve drugs and devices, inspect food facilities, regulate tobacco
CDC	2,400	Track disease outbreaks, run vaccination programs, publish safety data
NIH	1,200	Fund and conduct biomedical research, run clinical trials
CMS and other HHS divisions	Remainder of cuts	Administer Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA marketplace
Kennedy also fired or forced out senior leaders at multiple agencies. Peter Stein, director of the FDA’s Office of New Drugs, was removed. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was pushed out. Four NIH institute directors were removed in a single week.
Then HHS discovered the cuts went too far. The agency reinstated 722 employees at the CDC and 220 at the NIH after realizing it could not perform basic operations without them. Kennedy acknowledged the errors at a Senate hearing but described them as routine adjustments.

The FY 2026 budget request made the damage permanent. Kennedy proposed cutting HHS discretionary spending by 25 percent — a $32 billion reduction. The NIH alone would lose $18 billion, dropping its budget to $27.5 billion, the lowest level in over a decade when adjusted for inflation. The CDC would lose $3.5 billion. The FDA would lose $409 million. These are not theoretical numbers. They mean fewer food inspectors, slower drug approvals, and research that simply stops.

---

Kennedy replaced the nation’s vaccine experts with skeptics. A federal judge said it was illegal.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is the panel that decides which vaccines the CDC recommends for children and adults. It is the reason your pediatrician knows which shots your kid needs and when. For decades, ACIP has been staffed by immunologists and infectious-disease specialists selected for their expertise. In late 2025, Kennedy removed all 17 independent scientific experts from ACIP in a single day. He announced the decision in an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal. He replaced them with new appointees of his own choosing, including Robert Malone and Martin Kulldorff, both of whom had publicly questioned vaccine safety and downplayed COVID-19. The court later found that 15 Kennedy appointees had been placed on the committee, only 6 with meaningful vaccine expertise. The new panel got to work. It voted to abandon universal hepatitis B vaccination for newborns and restricted a combination shot that protects against chickenpox, measles, mumps, and rubella. It also declined to universally recommend COVID-19 vaccines. Separately, in January 2026, the CDC unilaterally reduced the number of routinely recommended childhood vaccinations from 17 to 11, cutting guidance on rotavirus, influenza, and hepatitis A without consulting ACIP at all. On March 16, 2026, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy ruled all of it illegal. The court found that only 6 of Kennedy’s 15 ACIP appointees had any meaningful vaccine expertise, despite the panel’s charter requiring it. The judge blocked all 13 Kennedy appointees and invalidated the votes the reconstituted panel had taken. He also found the CDC had exceeded its authority in cutting the vaccine schedule without ACIP review.

The administration said it would appeal. As of May 2026, the appeal is pending and the original ACIP recommendations remain in legal limbo. Tell Congress that RFK Jr. cannot be trusted with public health.

---

HHS suppressed research that shows vaccines work.

If you cannot fire the scientists fast enough, you can bury their findings. In October 2025, two FDA studies on COVID-19 vaccines that had been accepted by peer-reviewed medical journals were withdrawn before publication. The studies found no safety concerns. The agency also blocked two safety studies on the shingles vaccine Shingrix from being presented at a drug safety conference. HHS said the studies were pulled due to “concerns about their conclusions.” The pattern continued at the CDC. In March 2026, Jay Bhattacharya, the most senior political appointee at the CDC, suppressed a study showing that COVID-19 vaccines cut hospitalizations by roughly half during the 2025-2026 winter season. The study had been scheduled for publication in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. It found vaccines reduced emergency department visits, urgent care visits, and hospitalizations among healthy adults by approximately 50 percent. The study was pulled from the publication schedule. No explanation was offered to the scientists who conducted it. Federal researchers collect data, analyze it, and publish it so doctors and patients can make informed decisions. When political appointees decide which results see the light of day, doctors cannot recommend treatments they do not know about and parents cannot make informed choices.

---

The measles crisis is here. The U.S. may lose its elimination status.

In the first three months of 2026, the United States logged roughly 1,600 measles cases, nearly as many as the total for all of 2025, which was already the worst year for measles in decades. The outbreaks are concentrated in communities with declining vaccination rates. The Pan American Health Organization was expected to review the nation’s measles elimination status at an April 13 meeting. The administration secured a delay, pushing the review to PAHO’s annual meeting — conveniently scheduled after the November midterm elections. Kennedy’s new CDC deputy, Ralph Abraham, publicly downplayed the significance of losing elimination status. At a Senate hearing in April 2026, Kennedy denied responsibility for the outbreaks. The timeline tells a different story. A secretary who spent his career questioning vaccines leads an agency that cut its vaccine recommendations by a third and suppressed research showing vaccines work. The measles virus did not change. The response to it did.

---

The latest target: the panel that decides which screenings you get for free.

On May 11, 2026, Kennedy fired the two vice chairs of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the independent panel that determines which preventive services Americans can receive at no cost under the Affordable Care Act. John Wong and Esa Davis received letters telling them their removal was effective immediately. This is the panel that recommends mammograms, colonoscopies, depression screenings, and dozens of other services that insurance must cover without a copay. Kennedy is currently seeking nominations for new members, with replacements expected to start in July. The ACIP purge followed the same playbook: fire the independent experts, replace them with political allies, change the recommendations to match the secretary’s views. If Kennedy reshapes the USPSTF, the consequences go beyond vaccines. They reach into every doctor’s office, every screening appointment, every preventive service that catches cancer early or identifies depression before it becomes a crisis.

---

Medicaid is being cut by $911 billion. Twelve states could lose expansion entirely.

While Kennedy dismantles the agencies, Congress is cutting the safety net. The reconciliation bill signed into law on July 4, 2025, included $911 billion in cuts to Medicaid over the next decade. The most immediate threat: on January 1, 2026, the law sunsets the enhanced Federal Medical Assistance Percentage that incentivized states to expand Medicaid under the ACA. Under the enhanced match, the federal government covered 90 percent of costs for the expansion population. When that match drops, states must pick up a far larger share — or drop the expansion entirely. Nine states have trigger laws that automatically end Medicaid expansion if the federal match falls below 90 percent.

The states at risk:

State	Expansion enrollees at risk
Arkansas	340,000
Illinois	830,000
Indiana	540,000
Montana	95,000
New Hampshire	55,000
North Carolina	600,000
Utah	140,000
Virginia	600,000
Arizona (trigger at 80%)	550,000
Three additional states — Idaho, Iowa, and New Mexico — have trigger laws requiring legislative review, which would likely lead to the same result.

The Congressional Budget Office projects these Medicaid changes will increase the number of uninsured Americans by 10 million over the decade. That is 10 million people who will delay care and skip prescriptions until they end up in emergency rooms, which costs everyone more in the long run. Tell Congress to stop Medicaid work requirements.

---

Protect yourself right now

1. Check your state’s Medicaid status. If you live in a state with a trigger law — Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah, Virginia, Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, or New Mexico — your state’s Medicaid expansion may end. Contact your state legislators and ask them what their plan is for the people who will lose coverage. The KFF Medicaid tracker has state-by-state data.
2. Talk to your doctor. Ask whether any recommended screenings or vaccinations have changed for you or your family. If your provider has not heard about the ACIP changes or the USPSTF firings, tell them. Doctors are getting less guidance from federal agencies, not more. Patients who ask questions help fill the gap.
3. Stay vaccinated. The court ruling restored the original ACIP recommendations for now. The science on childhood vaccines has not changed. Measles, hepatitis B, rotavirus, and influenza remain dangerous and preventable. If you or your children are behind on any vaccinations, schedule an appointment.