Washington (AP) – In a major overhaul, the American Ministry of Health and Social Services will dismiss 10,000 workers and close entire agencies, including those that will supervise billions of dollars of funds for drug addiction services and community health centers across the country.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. criticized the department he supervises as an ineffective “sprawling bureaucracy” in a video announcing the restructuring on Thursday. He criticized the 82,000 ministry workers for a drop in the health of the Americans.
“I want to promise you now that we are going to do more with less,” said Kennedy in the video, published on social networks.
The restructuring plan caps of weekly tumult weeks in the best health service in the country, which was involved in rumors of mass layoffs, the revocation of $ 11 billion in public health funding for cities and counties, a lukewarm response to a measles epidemic and controversial remarks on the vaccines of its new chief.
However, Kennedy said that a “painful period” is waiting for us in HHS, which is responsible for monitoring infectious diseases, food inspection and hospitals and the supervision of health insurance programs for almost half of the country.
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Overall, the ministry will reduce 62,000 jobs, losing nearly a quarter of its staff – 10,000 jobs through layoffs and 10,000 other workers who have taken early retirement and voluntary separation offers encouraged by the administration of President Donald Trump.
The cuts were reported for the first time by the Wall Street Journal.
Public health experts, doctors, current and former HHS workers and Congress Democrats quickly developed Kennedy’s plans, warning that they could have incalculable consequences for millions of people across the country.
“These employees endanger public health and food security,” said Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports, in a statement. “They raise serious concerns about the fact that the administration’s commitment to make the Americans healthy could not become anything more than an empty promise.”
But Kennedy, by announcing restructuring, castigated HHS for having omitted to improve the lifespan of Americans and not to do enough to reduce chronic diseases and cancer rates.
“All this money,” said Kennedy about the annual budget of $ 1.7 billion of the ministry, “failed to improve the health of the Americans.”
According to American Cancer Society, cancer mortality rates have dropped by 34% in the past two decades, translating by 4.5 million deaths avoided, according to American Cancer Society. This is largely due to the cessation of smoking, the development of better treatments – including many funded by the National Institutes of Health, including revolutionary immunotherapy – and previous detection.
Federal health workers – stationed across the country in agencies such as NIH and Food and Drug Administration, both in Maryland – have described the shock, fear and anxiety that are launching in their offices on Thursday. The workers were not informed of the cuts, several said to the Associated Press, and many remained uncertain about whether their work was on the cutting block.
“It is incredibly difficult, frustrating and overwhelming not really knowing where we are while we are trying to continue doing the job,” said a member of the FDA staff who spoke under the cover of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “We are mean and disabled and we have this guillotine that drags on our necks.”
HHS provided a ventilation of cuts to the FDA, NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid.
__ 3,500 jobs at the FDA, which inspects and establishes safety standards for drugs, medical devices and food.
__ 2400 jobs at the CDC, which monitors infectious epidemics and works with public health agencies.
__ 1,200 jobs at NIH, the first public health research arm in the world.
__ 300 jobs at CMS, which oversees the market for the affordable care law, Medicare and Medicaid.
HHS said it was planning that changes will save $ 1.8 billion per year but have not given ventilation or any other detail.
The cuts and consolidation go much further than anyone waiting, said an NIH employee.
“We are all quite devastated,” said the staff member, who spoke under the guise of anonymity for fear of reprisals. “We don’t know what it means for public health.”
The union leaders of CDC workers in Atlanta said they had received a HHS notice on Thursday morning that discounts will mainly focus on administrative positions, including human resources, finance, purchases and information technology.
At CMS, where the cuts focus on workers who summarize the problems that arise for the beneficiaries of Medicare and registration for affordable care care, the result will be the “lowest customer service standards” for thousands of cases, said Jeffrey Grant, former assistant director of the agency who resigned last month.
Beyond the loss of workers, Kennedy said he would close entire agencies, some of which were created by the Congress decades ago. Several will be integrated into a new administration for a healthy America, he said.
These include the Health Resources and Services Administration, which oversees and provides funding for hundreds of community health centers across the country, as well as for the drug addiction and mental health services, which finances clinics and supervises the national hotline 988. The two agencies pump billions of dollars in local work in local communities.
Samhsa was created by Congress in 1992, so the closure is illegal and raises questions about Kennedy’s commitment to deal with dependence and mental health, said Keith Humphreys, researcher at the University of Stanford.
“Burning the agency in an administrative blob without a clear objective is not the way to highlight the problem or coordinate an answer,” said Humphreys.
The new administration for Healthy America will focus on maternal and child health, environmental health and HIV / AIDS work, said HHS.
The administration for the preparation and strategic response, created by a law signed by the republican president of the time, George W. Bush and responsible for maintaining the national stock which was quickly drained during the COVID-19 pandemic, will also be eliminated and transferred to the CDC.
The writers of the associated press Matthew Perrone and Lauran Neergaard in Washington; Jonel Aleccia in Temecula, California; Carla K. Johnson in Seattle; And Mike Stobbe in New York contributed.