Massive employment features provided for the department of Health And social services (HHS) will open the way to taking control of crucial services by the private sector, by jeopardizing the United States in future health emergencies, health experts and democratic politicians warn.
Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr announced that the department would be laid off 20,000 workers From his workforce of around 82,000 people on Thursday, or almost a quarter of the workforce in the department.
“People must understand the impact on them personally,” said Patty Murray, senator from Washington State and classification member of the Senate Credit Committee. “Pandemics prevention costs something. Do not prevent them costs them much more. All this makes us less prepared for the next public health emergency. ”
HHS is a huge branch of the federal government, supervising a budget of 1.7 TN. The ministry includes agencies that are familiar names – including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
These branches respectively protect the Americans from epidemics, direct the largest biomedical and behavioral research agency funded by the world, offer health insurance at 137 million older and low -income Americans through Medicare and Medicaid, and approve and regulate medical devices, drugs and medical foods from the country.
All would see cuts in the proposed reorganization of Kennedy, in some cases, making up the layoffs initiated by the “Department of Efficiency of the Government” unofficial led by the billionaire Trump-Elon Musk.
Friday, during a virtual press conference, also assisted by former leaders of some of the same agencies that should be reduced, Murray said that the expected job cuts put the United States on “a dangerous collision path” and would seriously harm his capacity for public health crises such as measles And bird flu epidemics.
Murray warned that mass layoffs are intended to open the way for critical services to private companies. She said Donald Trump and his billionaire Ally Elon Musk, who was heading for the felling of federal workers through his “Department of Effectiveness of the Government”, were unconscious of the consequences because they wrongly thought that public health responsibilities could be privatized.
“One of the goals I start to hear Trump administration And Elon Musk, it is this government that does not need to do all of this, we will simply privatize all of this, “said Murray.” I will tell you, our people from public health who come out and follow measles or follow darling or the follow -up of a new pandemic will not work for a private company.
“There will be no private company because their whole goal is to make a profit. There is no for-profit lessons,” she said.
On Thursday, American Democratic senators said they had been flooded with “panicked” calls for federal workers since almost the moment the announcement was made, because so few details have been given on the branches or the agencies that would be cut. Kennedy said that 28 branches in the department would be consolidated in 15, emphasizing the elimination of positions such as human resources and IT.
She said that the mission of public health agents was “to ensure that you have the information you need if there is a huge flu epidemic in your region, whether or not you know that your children are safe or what you need to do to protect them.
“There is not a private company that will come and do it. This is why we have what is called a government agency, for the good of the people. It will not be replaced by a certain company for profit. ”
His comments were supported by Robert Califf, a former Commissioner of Food and Drug Administration, who said that privatization would exacerbate health inequalities in the United States.
“Many of these privatized things will only radically increase the enormous disparities we already have,” he said.
“I have worked in all sectors, and your work in a company is to pay attention to the results and to achieve a profit, and it is better done in this country at the moment by addressing people who have a lot of money … It is a good way to no longer make the health of America.”
Trump and Kennedy adopted the slogan “to make America healthy” to define their mission to redirect the country’s approach to public health, but many Experts and professionals say that it threatens make the opposite.
Kennedy insisted that job cuts would not affect “leading workers” and make agencies more effective. However, few details have been provided on specific programs that will be affected, beyond fragmentary ads.
At least one republican senator who watched Kennedy critically watched during confirmation hearings, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana who is also a doctor, seemed to the line on the cuts.
In an article on social networks, he said: “I am interested in HHS better, such as approval of vital drugs faster, and the Medicare service has improved. I can’t wait to hear how this reorganization promotes these objectives.”
Apart from the government, the cuts were welcomed with waves of skepticism in the health sector, both in the file and in reports.
“Any reduction in our public health infrastructure – whether workers or funding – is only used to make the Americans more sick,” said Dr. Chris Pernell, director of the NAACP Center for Health Equity, in a press release, arguing that this would already worsen vast health disparities between white and black Americans.
“And we know that when America has a cold, the blacks get the flu.