Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on March 27 announced major changes at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including the merging of some divisions.
He said the aim is to make HHS more efficient, and improve the quality of service.
Some divisions of HHS will be consolidated, and about 25 percent of its 82,000 employees will be laid off.
Kennedy said the transition will be painful but that the department is “going to do more with less.”
The HHS budget increased by about 38 percent from 2021 to 2025, Kennedy said, while staffing went up by 17 percent during that time.
“But all that money has failed to improve the health of Americans,” he said.
Kennedy said that he’s found HHS is “mainly operating in silos,” with some divisions working “at cross-purposes with each other.”
“A few isolated divisions are neglecting public health altogether and seem only accountable to the industries that they’re supposed to be regulating,” Kennedy also said, without naming the divisions.
He also said that in one instance, “defiant bureaucrats impeded the secretary’s office from accessing the closely guarded databases that might reveal the dangers of certain drugs and medical interventions.”
The reorganization, which will reduce HHS’ 28 divisions down to 15, is expected to save $1.8 billion a year, health officials said. HHS said in a statement that many of the divisions contain “redundant units.”
One new division, the Administration for a Healthy America, will absorb five former divisions, including the Health Resources and Services Administration and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, which is responsible for responding to public health emergencies and national disasters, will be folded into the CDC.
The Administration for Community Living, which helps older people and individuals with disabilities, will have its tasks redistributed to other agencies, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The agency’s regional offices will be reduced from 10 to five.
The reorganization, spurred by President Donald Trump’s order to agencies to initiate mass terminations, will not affect key services, such as Medicare and Medicaid, HHS stated.
Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee, said in a statement on social media platform X that the cuts are “a grave mistake.”
“I have serious concerns about how this will impact Americans’ well-being now and long into the future,” he wrote.
National Treasury Employees Union President Doreen Greenwald said the cuts would have a devastating impact on public health services across the country, and “jeopardize our nation’s ability to protect and serve its own citizens.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) is more optimistic.
“I am interested in HHS working better, such as life saving drug approval more rapidly, and Medicare service improved,” he wrote on X.
—Zachary Stieber, Stacy Robinson
GREENLAND'S SECURITY IN FOCUS
Even a partial about-face throws a lot in profile.
In the case of an American delegation’s trip to Greenland, a changed itinerary reflects the importance of security ties between the two—along with the backlash against Trump among at least some politicians in Greenland and in Denmark, which possesses Greenland as a territory.
Initially, Second Lady Usha Vance was slated to come on March 27, less than two weeks after Greenland’s elections. The White House announced she would tour some sites and attend Greenland’s national dogsled race.
The caretaker prime minister and the leader of the leading party after that election pushed back against the slated visit after it was announced. There was also talk of public protests at the dogsled race.
Ulrik Pram Gad, an expert on Greenlandic-Danish relations, told The Epoch Times in an email that the plans were “yet another instance of the Trump administration not caring about the rule of the game in traditional diplomacy,” noting that the trip was scheduled for a period when the parliament is still being formed.
The Americans quickly pivoted. The White House announced a new plan, one that further elevated the delegation while providing some physical distance from the parliament, not to mention likely protests: the second lady would be accompanied by her husband, Vice President JD Vance, and they would visit the United States’ Pituffik Space Base rather than the dogsled race.
In Gad’s judgement, “passive resistance won the standoff.”
Drew Horn, the CEO of the critical minerals firm GreenMet, told The Epoch Times in an emailed statement that the Americans were providing Greenland the “appropriate time and space to form their new government as desired.” Denmark, he added, was doing no such thing.
Vance’s trip to the Space Base, the latest manifestation of an American military presence on Greenland that began during World War II, also underscores its importance to America and Arctic security.
While the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom Gap, a key naval chokepoint in the North Atlantic, ebbed in significance with the end of the Cold War, escalating tensions between the West and both China and Russia have made it matter again.
For the United States, already starved for critical minerals for civilian and military applications that can be sourced from domestic or friendly foreign supply chains, a Chinese move on Greenland’s minerals is a perennial worry.
James Robbins of the Institute of World Politics told The Epoch Times that an independent Greenland that allied with Russia or China “would be a threat to us, security-wise, and a threat to the West.”
In prospective negotiations over Greenland’s future, that’s the stick. The carrot, for Greenland and the U.S., is additional security for the world’s largest island and, in particular, the prospect of mineral exploration that enriches the island’s inhabitants.
There’s even a model from the United States—the Alaska Permanent Fund, which delivers revenues from the state’s hydrocarbon resources to its people. Robbins said it could be a model for Greenland in a possible future relationship with the United States.
—Nathan Worcester
BOOKMARKS
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) is no longer Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Trump pulled Stefanik from consideration, asking her to remain in Congress and preserve the GOP’s slim majority in the House.
The U.K. government intends to protect members of Falun Gong living on its soil from transnational threats by communist China. “Any attempt by any foreign state to intimidate, harass or harm individuals or communities in the UK will not be tolerated,” British Home Office Minister Lord Hanson of Flint said.
The Social Security Administration said on Wednesday it will scrap a plan that required some Americans to visit its offices to confirm their identity if they don’t have access to an online “My Social Security” account. Individuals applying for Social Security Disability Insurance, Supplemental Security Income or Medicare can complete applications over the phone if the online option is unavailable to them.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Ranking Member Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) want the Pentagon to investigate senior government officials’ use of the Signal app to discuss sensitive military plans. The lawmakers’ concerns come after the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine Jeffrey Goldberg revealed he had been added to a Signal group chat discussing possible strikes in Yemen.
Republicans in Congress are seeking to make Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent. The Epoch Times’ Emel Akan examines some of the hurdles they will have to clear to get the job done.
—Stacy Robinson
